


Blossoming

by torovoro (Diglossia)



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Belly Kink, Burping, Chubby to fat Wylan, Eventual chubby Kuwei, M/M, Weight Gain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 06:42:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 52,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13676367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diglossia/pseuds/torovoro
Summary: Kuwei's back in Ketterdam and Wylan's getting soft. Jesper is not opposed to either of these things.





	1. Chapter 1

If you asked Wylan how he would prefer to spend his Wednesday, bailing a semi-acquaintance out of jail would not be the answer. And yet, here he was.

“How,” Wylan said, fighting the urge to scowl.

The man on the other side of the bars lifted his golden eyes.

“Can you just get me out of here?” Kuwei asked. There was no mistaking him. Mid-length black hair, eyes the color of the sun, a stubborn chin. Wylan had Kuwei Yul-Bo's’s face burned into his memory. He had worn it once and he would never forget it nor, for so many reasons, its true bearer.

That, under no circumstances, meant he was happy to see him. Kuwei shouldn’t be in Ketterdam. He had left for Ravka, never to return. Against all reason, he had and caught the attention of the  _stadwatch_  to boot.

“What are you doing here?” Wylan asked. He tried to control the irritation gathering in his chest. It was accompanied by a sharp spike of fear. If the  _stadwatch_  realized who this was…

“Visiting.”

Wylan scoffed. The  _stadwatch_  weren’t prone to locking people up without reason. Even a Shu could get around them if he had enough  _kruge_  for bribes.

“What did you do?” He kept the words low, careful not to raise suspicion.

“You think this is my fault?”

“Are you saying it’s not?”

“I was in the Barrel,” Kuwei said. His accent was smooth, only a slight catch at the end of words. “I got lost. I asked for directions.”

Wylan didn’t believe him. He breathed out through his nose.

The  _stadwatch_  officer was watching them, curiosity showing under his impassive mask. Kuwei had been clever to ask for Wylan. The officer had already seen them talking. He had likely heard the anger in Wylan’s voice. People would be as interested in a man a Van Eck left to rot in jail as one he rescued from it.

“Release him,” Wylan told the officer. “I'll settle the account.”

The officer snapped to attention. “He was in East Stave bothering the ladies, sir.”

That sounded like a no. And highly implausible, considering Kuwei’s leanings. Wylan sniffed. “I’d like to speak to your superior.” The man didn’t move. He must be new. “Well?”

The officer hurried off to find them.

The second he was out of the room, Wylan whirled on Kuwei. “Do you have  _any_  idea the kind of trouble you're in? What were you  _thinking_  coming here?”

The childish irritation on Kuwei’s face vanished, replaced by a clear-eyed sharpness. “I'm an unregistered Grisha with a Shu face who just got off a ship from Ravka. I’m in a cell that stinks of fish and I’ve had men in purple coats pretending I don’t exist for the past two hours. Or were you talking about if they figure out who I really am? I  _know_. That’s why you’re here.”

A swarthy, mousy-looking man in a captain’s uniform scurried in before Wylan could snarl out a reply.

“Mister Van Eck! So wonderful to see you. Ah! You’ve met our prisoner. He claims to be an, ah,  _acquaintance_  of yours.” The captain’s smile was a slimy, smarmy affair. Officiousness had a way of disappearing when deep pockets were involved. “If that is true, Mister Van Eck, I would be delighted to release him into your care.”

“He’s not being charged with anything?”

“Not if he’s a personal friend of the Van Eck family.”

Wylan didn’t care for that answer but Ghezen knew the  _stadwatch_  was corrupt. Van Eck money had lined their pockets for generations. Wylan hadn’t seen the need to stop the practice when he took over the family business. He had gotten rid of the personal guard. The  _stadwatch_  itself? They were too practical.

Wylan closed his eyes in consternation. He waved his fingers. The officer began searching for the right key.

“Stay behind me,” he told Kuwei when the bars swung open. The greater the apparent power imbalance, the more the  _stadwatch_  would buy it. Merchers had business contacts all over the world. The Barrel was a popular den of vice. If they walked out of here with Wylan playing the arrogant, rich, above-the-law mercher, questions would not be asked.

Not to mention, Wylan was fuming.

A desk officer tried to stop them walking out without signing the release forms. Wylan gave him a dismissive sniff. The man flushed and muttered his apologies, tucking the forms away.

Just like that, they were outside on the overcast streets of Ketterdam.

A look, a few words, and the weight of generations of Van Ecks behind him. That was all it took.

“Get in.” He motioned to the waiting carriage.

“Didn't you have anyone else to bother?” he asked once the door shut behind them. The distance to the house wasn't far but Wylan, for propriety and other reasons, wasn't about to walk.

Kuwei's eyes wandered over the inside of the carriage- sparse, dark, and well-upholstered- and then drifted to Wylan. They lingered on his middle before flicking away.

“No,” he said. He leaned sullenly against the enclosed carriage wall, legs spread wide and ill-mannered. He placed his hand against the side of his mouth as if he were in the middle of a long and boring journey, not a fugitive recently released from jail. “The only people in Ketterdam I know are you and Kaz. “

While Wylan was, legally speaking, the better choice, "Did you think about maybe not getting yourself in trouble?"

Kuwei's face twisted, a child annoyed at being given a lecture. Wylan had to fight not to throttle him.

“Where are we going?” Kuwei asked.

“My home.”

Wylan expected Kuwei to ask why or how long that would take. The boy only nodded and leaned harder on his hand.

It was quiet from there.

Kuwei glanced out the window. Periodically, his gaze slipped to Wylan's stomach. He opened his mouth and closed it without saying anything. That was surprising. Most Kerch weren’t so reserved.

Unlike Wylan, Kuwei's features had sharpened as he'd gotten older. He had the high cheekbones and slim frame of his people with a slight, outward curve to his nose unexpected of a Shu. Wylan, on the other hand, was well past words like slim and sharp. His cheeks were no longer gaunt and his belly was a soft slope brushing against his thighs. A month ago, it had been half this size, as many in Ketterdam felt free to point out.

“What were you doing when the  _stadwatch_  caught you?” Wylan asked, not liking the way Kuwei was watching him.

“Walking.”

“The captain said you were bothering women.”

“I asked for directions.”

“Where to?”

Kuwei’s eyes drifted back to Wylan’s middle. Wylan pursed his lips. Ravka evidently did not teach tact.

“The Barrel. I was in the mood for gambling.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Kuwei shrugged and pointedly turned his gaze to the window. “I don’t need you to. I  _was_  visiting. I had some money saved away and I wanted to come back here. See if it was the same. Things have changed or my memory’s not that good, I don’t know. I asked for directions. The women thought I was a  _Kherguud_  and panicked and then I was arrested.”

Wylan did not see why this meant he had to get involved. He told Kuwei so.

Kuwei rolled his eyes. “I don't know, maybe because I'm legally dead and that's you and your friend's faults?”

Kuwei had him there.

“By the way,” Kuwei said, “the name’s Benba now. If you were going to bother using it.”

 

* * *

 

When they got to the house, Wylan shoved the kid in an empty bedroom and asked the maid to make sure he didn't set the curtains on fire. Then he retired to his office and attempted to merge his forehead with his desk.

He had to let Kaz know, if he hadn’t found out already. There had been rumors going around the city in the months after the auction that Kuwei had escaped somehow, the shot wounding but not killing him. The Shu attacks had only lent strength to that idea, believed as they were to be searches not just for Grisha but for one very particular.

What was Kuwei thinking coming here? And crossing paths with the  _stadwatch_? Kuwei should never have stepped foot on Kerch soil again. Yet he had come to the capital itself and been arrested barely a mile from where he was last publicly seen. He was lucky Wylan had been awake- and luckier still no one had seen through his ruse. Shu didn’t come to Ketterdam anymore, except under banners of trade. A lone passenger by way of Ravka was a question that begged an answer.

Wylan chewed his lip. This was decidedly not good.

He wiped the frown off his face and called two servants, one to send a message to Kaz and the other to fetch Kuwei.

 

* * *

 

“If you're staying the night, you might as well make yourself at home. Have you eaten yet?”

Kuwei shook his head. He didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t had a chance to since he’d gotten off the ship. The hunger was making him lightheaded. He had been about to sleep it off when a servant girl told him Mister Wylan was waiting for him downstairs.

Wylan pursed his lips. He stood up and rang a bell. The same girl as before appeared in the doorway. Wylan spoke a few words to her before she dashed out.

It was as he was walking back to the desk that Kuwei noticed how closely Wylan's clothes clung to his figure. He'd gotten soft since Kuwei last saw him. They'd been about the same size four years ago, Kuwei slightly shorter. Wylan had grown a few inches since then, both in height and, to Kuwei’s glee, girth.

Wylan caught Kuwei looking and frowned. He sat back down in his chair. “How long will you be staying?”

“I don’t know.” Kuwei hadn’t really formulated a plan until he’d gotten off at the docks. He’d had the idea he’d visit the city. Do some sightseeing. Eat some waffles. Possibly come across a certain Zemeni and catch his eye, maybe strike up a conversation. He wondered where Jesper was now. Possibly he and Wylan had broken up. It was a hope.

Wylan nodded. He tapped his fingers on the desk and looked around the room. Kuwei didn’t try to start a conversation. Let Wylan be uncomfortable.

They stayed that way, silent, not looking at each other, until the servants brought Kuwei’s food. It was simple, soup and bread. Wylan didn’t have a bowl of his own and so Kuwei ate uncomfortably, conscious of the eyes on him.

He excused himself as soon as possible. He went to the room that had been prepared for him and lay down on the bed, wondering how he was going to get out of this.

In his dreams, Jesper returned home and found him there. Kuwei woke before he could find out whether that was a good or bad thing.


	2. Chapter 2

When the ship he bought passage on docked in Ketterdam’s harbor, Kuwei was not expecting a warm welcome. He was not expecting any welcome at all, to be honest. Four years had passed since his name was common knowledge, the same amount of time since he’d publicly used it.

With Ravkan papers, he was expecting to walk off the gangplank and straight into as much obscurity as any Shu national could hope. The Ravkans warned him to be careful. Keeping his head down was crucial. Grisha made valuable indentured servants and, while slavery was technically illegal in Kerch, it still went on. Grisha, they continued in their haughty way, were not treated nearly as well in Kerch as in a civilized country.

Kuwei wasn’t worried. Ketterdam was nothing. Ketterdam he could handle.

Did Wylan Van Eck's house count as Ketterdam?

Lying on his back on the bed, Kuwei struck his flint and turned the resulting spark into an arc of flame. He sent it around the room, directing it into circles and twists, baby tricks. With a flick of his fingers, he let the flame dissipate.

He sat up, clutched his face, and groaned.

Kuwei was monstrously bored. No one had really told him so, but he gathered he wasn’t supposed to venture far from the house. The  _stadwatch_ had dismissed the charges on Wylan's insistence but Kuwei knew men like them. They would take the first opportunity to show him that a patron would not keep him from their kind of justice. The farthest he could chance was going for walks about the district, where he quickly grew tired of the distrustful eyes of the ultra-rich.

He poked about the house and found little of interest there. Everything was paneled with dark mahogany wood and decorated with waves and Kerch flying fish. Rich oil paintings lined the walls while leaded windows let in a little light. 

The kitchen was the first room he sought out.

There was a library but the books were all either about the history of Kerch finance or the Van Eck family. Kuwei wasn't exactly astonished to find them dusty and barely used.

Mostly, he spent his time avoiding Wylan and trying to make friends with the servants.

There was one, a delicate, middle-aged woman, who Kuwei had been meaning to talk to. He thought she must be an indentured servant of some sort or an artisan, until Iske, the servant girl Kuwei had seen the first day, told him she was Wylan’s mother.

Kuwei avoided her, too, after that.

He got up and shoved his feet into a pair of shoes. It wasn't healthy to spend all day in one room. Even if there wasn't anything to do, he could find the valet and ask him for a copy of the latest broadsheet.

It was strange that the man had to go purchase one but that might attest to the quality of the local news. It did seem overly religious, always espousing the virtues of those "favored by Ghezen", the local patron god, and decrying the moral deprivation of the Barrel.

He was perusing it in the front parlor when Wylan returned frustrated and smelling like low tide.

"Let me guess," Kuwei said, eyes on a story about a prostitution crackdown in East Stave. "You can't find a single ship's captain willing to take a Shu national to Ravka unless you tell them I'm Grisha, in which case they want to know who I'm indentured to and whether I'm lawfully allowed to leave. How close was I?" He grinned.

"I fail to see what's so funny," Wylan said imperiously.

Kuwei rolled his eyes and slumped back in his seat.

"You are right, though. Not a single one willing to take you without proper identification." Wylan hung his frock coat up on a hook. Without it, all attention was drawn to the buttons valiantly trying to keep his waistcoat closed. "How did you plan on getting out of the city?"

"I have my ways." If by ways you meant a seal from the Ravkan government guaranteeing payment in double to any ship willing to take him. Show that and any Kerch vessel would let him aboard...and alert the Second Army to his whereabouts.

"Then can't you secure your own passage?"

"You're assuming I want to leave." Now he was just baiting Wylan. There was little for him to do here but peruse a library devoted to the scintillating history of Kerch finance and hope for Jesper's return. Get the  _stadwatch_ to look aside from one young, skinny Shu and Kuwei would be  _gone_.

Wylan sniffed. "Fine. Make yourself at home. I will find a ship to take you."

Kuwei batted his eyelashes. His smile felt frozen on his face. "Is that a promise? Because I would  _love_ for you to waste that vast fortune of yours trying to get rid of me."

Wylan let out a frustrated noise and threw his hands up.

Kuwei laughed. The amusement faded somewhat as Wylan took the stairs. There was something mesmerizing about the gentle curves of Wylan's back, the shoulders dipping into a thick waist and then spreading out into soft love handles that bounced just a little with every step.

Kuwei dragged his fingers through his hair and groaned.

If he could, Wylan Van Eck would never cross his mind except as an annoyance, a barrier to things he wanted. Only, he had to go and get soft and soft just so happened to be as interesting to Kuwei as dark skin and long, lean fingers.

Every time he felt that flare of heat, which was every time he and Wylan crossed paths, Kuwei wondered the same thing. Wylan?  _Wylan?_

On the other hand, Kuwei had no problem understanding how his attention was drawn to a rude, fat merch who was getting fatter by the day.

So fat his waistcoats and sleeves drew tight around him. So fat his belly wobbled slightly when he walked.

In the secrecy of his borrowed room, Kuwei imagined Wylan’s lips would taste of sugar and whatever he had last eaten. He’d be soft in Kuwei’s arms and pliant. His small, soft belly would brush against Kuwei’s chest as he panted, eyes wide and wanting, as Kuwei dragged a finger down those straining buttons, that wonderfully tight waistcoat.

A fantasy, Kuwei reminded himself. The real Wylan was a jerk, plain and simple.

Kuwei wouldn’t let him be cute, too, not even in the safety of his own mind.

 

* * *

 

The avoiding was not going well.

In fact, it was going terribly. Kuwei had barely stopped himself from smacking straight into Wylan’s mother as they attempted to use the stairs at the same time. She had been going down them while he was coming up. There would have been plenty of room, if it weren’t for the fact that the Kerch had a strange predilection for using the exact opposite side of stairways as the rest of the world.

“Oh,” the woman said, her voice the airy, distracted sound of someone who had been brought to a breaking point once and never truly returned. “You must be Wylan's guest. Will you be a dear and go help him. My eyes are getting tired. I'm not as young as I once was.” She tittered.

There wasn’t much use in refusing, so off Kuwei went.

The door was open, which saved Kuwei the indignity of asking to enter an office he had no desire to be in.

The servants were setting down Wylan’s lunch. Kuwei had noticed that the meals served here were large, the kind of portions you could expect in a house of means. This was not that. The bowls of  _stamppot_  that were in front of Wylan…

No wonder Wylan had gotten so soft. Kuwei raised an eyebrow. Was he even aware? If he ate like this every meal- Kuwei shot a quick glance at the merch.

He expected Wylan to be embarrassed to be caught out. He seemed more annoyed. At Kuwei.

“The woman said to help you,” Kuwei said. He didn't know her name and it felt demeaning to admit that he had been sent here like a child for a playdate. “I did what she asked.”

That pinched look was on Wylan's face again. “Fine. You can read Kerch, right?” He chewed and pointed at a stack of papers. “Tell me what those say.”

Could he not stop working even to eat a meal? Kuwei picked up the paper. It was a deed of sale, easy enough.

Part of his agreement with the Ravkans was treating him like they did their other Grisha. When he set out the terms, he meant training. His whole life, he'd been taught in secret and mostly by Grisha who weren't Inferni. Zoya Nazyalensky had interpreted that as an offer to become a spy. In addition to Small Science training and time spent in the lab trying to piece together his late father's formula, Kuwei was slapped with history, culture, and language lessons.

He hadn't seen the point of studying Kerch along with the other world languages. If he wasn't allowed to go back, why bother? He'd slapped those lessons back in Zoya's face when she protested this visit on grounds of national security. 

"What a waste of national resources," he had said, "to teach me a language I'll never be able to use."

He didn't think he'd ever forget the look on her face.

Wylan was a delicate eater, refined if not slow. Kuwei tried to keep his focus on his reading. It was hard. Wylan was just so fast. From over top of the papers, Kuwei watched as Wylan worked his way through two massive bowls of some green mixed with potatoes and bits of bacon, hard cubes of cheese, crusty slices of white bread, and several cups of coffee doused liberally with cream, all in the time it took Kuwei to get through a couple deeds of sale. Wylan didn’t seem to notice anything was out of the ordinary and perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps he ate like this every day.

A very large part of Kuwei hoped he did.

Kuwei eventually got tired of standing, so he leaned on the edge of the desk. Wylan was still eating, though his pace had slowed considerably. From the corner of his eye, Kuwei could see how tightly his waistcoat was stretched over his shirt, the way his stomach bowed out at the top and came back in only to push out again. He was clearly at his limit and yet he showed no sign of stopping. For some reason, Kuwei found this immensely appealing.

He had finished the deed of sale and moved on to receipts for expenses at a lake house. They were a mixture of fine women's and children's clothes, flowers, and sheet music. There must be a story behind that. Kuwei didn't care to find out. He was just glad the words were simple, everyday Kerch. The next paper was a contract for the construction of a grain silo. Its wording was much more complicated and there were points where Kuwei was stumbling over words whose meanings he couldn't guess at.

The only thing keeping him from giving up and telling Wylan to read his own damn self was the eating. There was food left. Kuwei wanted to see whether Wylan could finish it all and what state he would be in when he did.

The contract was long. Kuwei found himself dragging it out every time Wylan stopped to take a breath. His eyes kept drifting from the page to Wylan and his slowly emptying bowls and plates.

Finally, just as Kuwei couldn't delay the inevitable any longer, Wylan leaned back in his chair. Unselfconsciously, he rested his hand on his stomach.

“Can you read that last part again?” he asked.

Kuwei was so distracted by the multitude of empty dishes on the table he read the wrong line and had to start again. Wylan had scraped them clean. All of them. In one sitting, he had eaten more than Kuwei would all day.

“I think that's enough for now.” Wylan paused. “Thank you.”

Kuwei put the paper down. His hand trembled slightly. “You're welcome.”

 

* * *

 

An uneventful week later, it happened again. And then, several days later, again.

Kuwei was starting to think Marya- because that was the woman’s name. Marya Hendricks. Kuwei had thought Kerch women took their husband’s names but he could be wrong- was memorizing his routine to get out of doing the reading herself. He'd be walking down the hall when he'd hear a gentle, slightly uneven, “Benba?", followed by "the light is so bad in there. Won't you help Wylan for me?”

Her eyes were too sharp for her not to know what she was doing. Kuwei wasn't in the way of having anything better to do, however, and so he acquiesced.

The second time wasn't too bad. Kuwei read, Wylan ate, and Kuwei left when he was done. Only Wylan didn't say thank you the second time, just "that'll do" like Kuwei, a Little Palace-trained Grisha wanted by every country in the world,  _worked_ for him.

Needless to say, Kuwei wasn't exactly in a good mood when he walked into the office the third time.

He had barely seen Wylan all week. The man polishing off a piece of rye bread behind the desk was visibly plumper. His cheekbones were still sharp but his stomach was round and soft and  _big._

Kuwei swallowed. Saints forgive him for whatever he had done.

“The papers,” Wylan said.

And there the magic went, out the window and down to the smelly canal where it promptly drowned itself.

“Can't you read them yourself?” Kuwei asked.

“I'd rather not,” Wylan said, taking another bite of his bread. The magic made a miraculous recovery.

Kuwei wanted to protest that he wasn’t a servant. He wanted to spend the next hour reading and watching Wylan eat himself silly. He didn’t know what he wanted.

“Can you at least not watch me this time?” he complained. “I don't like it when you stare.” It made his collar itch.

Wylan frowned but agreed.

Kuwei started out fine, taking the difficult business Kerch with, if not ease, determination. The task proved harder than anticipated. The promissory note was filled with financial jargon, the unfamiliarity of the words and letter combinations threatening to destroy his tongue.  


He struggled through the trickier words, hating how sounds were swallowed or, worse, overemphasized. He had never mastered Kerch's dreaded velar fricatives. They taunted him now, showing up in every other word. Worse, he kept forgetting which sound went with which vowel combination. Every time he made a mistake, Wylan would frown and tell him to start again. It was humiliating and unnecessary and that, Kuwei was sure, was why Wylan was making him do it.

“I don't know how to say this,” he snapped after three attempts at a word that either meant  _surety agreement_  or  _the Saints have abandoned you, Kuwei_. Slapping the paper down on the desk, he jabbed his finger at the offending word.

Wylan was unfazed. “Sound it out.”

How would “sounding it out” help if he couldn’t  _read the word?_  "Can't you just read it?"

Wylan blinked slow and languidly. “It'd be easier if you sounded it out.”

If he could sound it out, he'd be able to say it! Was Wylan really so spoiled he couldn't be bothered to look at the paper? What kind of humiliation tactic was that? Kuwei had met plenty of people at the Little Palace who thought they'd one up the new kid- after all, he was clearly a Shu refugee, a traitor, a stranger to Ravka, its language, and its philosophies. 

This was something else. Where the other Grisha would laugh as Kuwei struggled with sounds, Wylan hardly seemed amused at all. If Kuwei was only slightly off, he'd correct him. But when he butchered a word and he knew he had, the  _g_ coming out hard and the vowels nothing like they should, there was a slightly pained expression on Wylan's face, not a wince but a crease between his eyebrows. It was as though Kuwei was causing him not discomfort at the failed rendering of his language but confusion.

Which made no sense, unless...

"You can't read, can you?"

Color spread across Wylan's milk-pale cheeks.

Kuwei was, in a word,  _delighted_. "You really can't." Few in Shu Han could read. Most of Ravka was too poor to teach their children more than their letters. But here in Kerch, a mercher's child, ooh, that was something to feel shame over. "What, did you not like your tutors? Was it too much effort for a spoiled, ri-"

Wylan sucked in air through his nostrils, cutting Kuwei off. "I would like you to leave."

"I would love to leave." He'd kill to stay. Wylan's cheeks were so red; he wanted to touch them. "But don't you need me here? I mean, your mother's tired, she can't read to you. That must be so embarrassing, having to get your mother to do so much work for you because you can't be bother-"

"Get," Wylan bit, "out."

 

* * *

 

Dead silence greeted Kuwei when he stepped into the kitchen. Five servants in there and. Dead. Silence. 

Spoons hung halfway to mouths. Hands froze in the air. The assistant cook's pestle froze inside the mortar. Every eye in the room was on him.

He asked the cook quietly if he might have something to eat. She pointed at a pot where a dark green, meat-smelling stew bubbled. He filled a bowl.

The servants slid away as he sat down at the table. It was early afternoon and this was their lunch. Kuwei didn't know what to say.  _The port at Os Kervo suffered an early winter freeze. I haven't had anything but bread for several days. You can keep staring at me all you want: I'm pretty immune to hostile looks._

"You upset Mister Wylan," the cook said. She was the only one who wasn't staring, intent on her task of rubbing herbs into a slab of bright red beef. "That wasn't smart of you."

"Why? What's he going to do about it?"

She flipped the meat over and began pummeling it with her fists. Sodium bicarbonate would be more effective and easier. "Nothing, most likely. He isn't a vengeful man."

Other than that time he stole his abusive father's empire out from under him.

"You sound awfully fond of your employer."

"Mister Yul-Dawr," she said, using the patronymic Genya Safin had chosen for him after he refused her offer to tailor his face. When she christened him, she told him to forget his name and his history, everything but  _parem_. Never mind that his story and the story of  _parem_ were inherently intertwined. "I have worked for this family for thirty-two years. I have known Mister Wylan since the day he was born. That father of his was a right bastard but he's never been anything other than good to us. Him and Mister Jesper might be funny fellows but they're good people."

"I'm friends with Jesper," Kuwei felt the need to point that out.

"Then you'll know there's no one he treasures more in this world than Mister Wylan. He won't appreciate you being rude to him."

" _Mister Wylan_  was being rude to me first," Kuwei muttered. Thankfully, the cook didn't hear him.

One of the servants, the valet, Koen, crooked a finger at him. Kuwei leaned forward.

"Are you really a Grisha?" the man asked, a mixture of fear and curiosity in his eyes.

"Yes."

"From Ravka?"

"Not originally."

"But you're here to help train Jesper?"

"Sure," Kuwei said, liking that idea enormously. "If he wants me to."

"What's it like, being able to do all that-" Koen made an incomprehensible series of waves and gestures with his arms "-stuff?"

Kuwei wasn't often open to talking about his powers with non-Grisha but the last few days had been lonely and there were few places an Inferni felt more at home than a kitchen. So he began telling them, trading for bits of information about Jesper. Wylan crept into many of their stories. Kuwei found he didn't mind too much.

"Where is Jesper?" he asked, after sending a petrel made of flame soaring about the kitchen.

"On a job," Iske answered simply.

"He works?" Kuwei would have thought Wylan rich enough for them both.

"Sometimes. He does shows for a gunsmith."

"And jobs for Dirtyhands," Koen added, his eyes on the cook's back. "We're not supposed to know but." He shrugged. "He's been gone longer than he should be. Mister Wylan's in a mood over it. Whatever he's doing must be dangerous."

"Do you work for Dirtyhands?" he asked Kuwei. A brown-haired woman whose name Kuwei didn't know hit him on the back of the head. "Ow! What? You're the one who said you thought you'd seen him before."

The petrel dissipated into hot air.

"Never mind Koen," the brown-haired woman said. "His head has never produced a thought worth hearing."

"I work for myself," Kuwei said. He could feel his heart beating louder and louder.  "And I'd know if I'd been in this house before."

"Lunch break is over," the cook announced. A chorus of groans erupted. "Bowls by the washbin, you lot know how it works." When Kuwei moved to go with them, she told him to stay. Her tone brooked no disagreement.

"Are you a liar, Mister Yul-Dawr?"

"No?" he answered, unable to help the rising tone at the end.

"Let me rephrase. Do you lie maliciously, Mister Yul-Dawr, with the intent to hurt my employers?"

"Oh. No."

"Good. Then whether or not it was you who helped Dirtyhands ruin a dinner party I spent weeks planning, I am willing to accept you." She placed a heavy tray in his hands. "Mister Wylan will be wanting his lunch now."

"I am not a servant."

She smiled unpleasantly. "Nor are you a guest."

 

* * *

 

"I don't want your apology," Wylan said when Kuwei appeared at his office door.

"I wasn't offering one.” Kuwei lifted the tray. "The cook told me to bring this."

"Then bring it."

Kuwei's hands tightened on the tray. Why did Wylan have to be such a jerk all the time? 

He dropped rather than set the tray down on the desk, taking a certain amount of joy when the soup sloshed over the lip of the bowl.

He rubbed his forearm. That tray had been heavy. A tureen of pea soup, half a loaf of crusty white bread, some sort of sweet pudding in a bowl that would have fit Kuwei's entire lunch, a pot of fruit spread, and a dish of butter, all of it encased in heavy ceramic and crystal.

Wylan wasted no time tucking in. Every mouthful was quick and neat, his pink tongue darting out to catch a stray drop of soup or butter, since he was alternating bites of soup and bread.

Kuwei shook himself.

"Right," he said. "I should go."

"You do that," Wylan said. His mouth was full.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time Kaz deigned to reply, Wylan had already been enjoying Kuwei's presence for two weeks. The Shu mostly kept to himself, making his periodic reemergences that much more likely to annoy the shit out of Wylan. If he wasn't being rude, he was staring at Wylan and that was rude in its own way

Jesper was still on a job, which was not making matters any better. Kaz hadn't been clear in where Jesper was going, leaving Wylan to imagine him in the direst of straits.

Wylan's worries aside, it was affecting business for Jesper to be gone. Wylan's mother was a fragile woman. She tired easily and had no head for numbers or figures. Wylan would much rather she spend her days painting by the canals or visiting Alys and his half-brother, both of whom she adored.

He did not want her straining her eyes because her son's inheritance could be whisked away if word got out he was incurably illiterate.

It would just have to be suffered. 

"What?" He couldn't have heard the messenger right. Kaz wouldn't tell him to keep Kuwei here.

The messenger repeated himself. 

There was no need, in Brekker's eyes, to do anything at all. Wylan should keep Kuwei in the house until he could be put on a ship back to Ravka.

Wylan pressed the heel of his hand into the side of his stomach. He'd pushed his limits at breakfast, surpassed them with his midmorning snack, and then utterly decimated them at lunch. Now he was packed tight and in desperate need of a belly rub. Only decorum and the faint sense that his every movement was being catalogued stopped him.

The discomfort kept him from screaming at the messenger. He told the boy who, really, Kaz, couldn’t be more than twelve, in terse words that he’d already looked into it and the next vessel willing to take on passengers didn’t leave for a matter of weeks. Kaz needed to find somewhere else for Kuwei until then.

"Brekker says people would be much less suspicious of a Shu visitor in a Councilman's home than in a Barrel gambling den."

Wylan told the boy to go. When he asked if Wylan had anything he wanted him to say, Wylan rubbed his temple and answered no. The words he wanted to say were far too rude to be conveyed anywhere but in person.

It was as well he and Kuwei had come to a truce of sorts. Kuwei would stay out of his way and Wylan would carry on as if Kuwei wasn't there. Anything he needed, he could ask the servants for. If he wanted to leave, no one would stop him.

Kuwei, sadly, had not tried.

He barely even left the property, just sat in that room of his and did...something. It must be tiresome.

Wylan could use his help, if he was willing to be civil. Not just with reading. Kuwei's father had been an amazing chemist. Even at fifteen, Kuwei had known so much. Four years with some of the greatest minds in the world, he must have learned something. What Wylan wouldn't give to pick his brain.

Maybe if things were different. He certainly wasn't going to get the chance now, not with the way Kuwei was acting.

Wylan yawned, causing his tummy to twinge in protest. All this thinking had distracted him. He ran both hands over it, feeling how tight it was. The contrast between the hard, stuffed top and the soft bottom was wonderful. It used to be hard all over, no give at all when he overate. He'd been working it hard lately. Now there were several inches of permanent softness pushing over the waistband of his pants. When he walked, it jiggled the slightest bit, sending delicious little shivers up his spine.

He squeezed the top absently. His meal had digested some while he spoke with Kaz's messenger. He was still full but not painfully. He might even, if he undid his vest and massaged it a little bit, be able to fit in another snack before dinner.

 

* * *

 

Kuwei woke in the middle of the night, something itching at the edge of his senses. His eyes flew open and he leapt out of bed, scrambling down the steps. He threw open the back door. His bare feet barely touched the ground as he ran to the work shed.

“Stop!” he yelled, arms crossed and fingers twisted, ready to contain the coming fireball.

Wylan looked up, obviously annoyed. “What in Ghezen’s name do you think you're doing?”

Sweat beaded on Kuwei's brow as he dragged the kinetic energy away from the material. It was a Squaller's trick with a Healer’s touch and every muscle in Kuwei's body screamed that this was not something it was made to do.

“Answer me!” Wylan demanded.

Sucking a hard breath in through his nose, Kuwei untangled his fingers. He lowered his arms. “Keeping you from blowing your entire house up.”

Wylan stood up indignantly. His belly bounced from the sudden movement. “I know what I'm doing.”

Kuwei made a futile gesture. It was no use explaining he had sensed the building fire potential and been trained to know that fire, past a certain point, couldn't be contained. Second Army Inferni didn't have the luxury of slow reaction times. "Obviously not."

He spread his senses out, trying to find the source of the energy. He walked around the shed. Wylan followed him, outrage in every line of his body.

It wasn't on the table. Kuwei scanned the shelves, ticking through everything it could possibly be, alarmed at how many explosive materials Wylan had collected in one space. If you were going to have an arsenal like this in a place like Ketterdam, you needed to get a Fabrikator to create temperature and humidity control. Otherwise you risked static build-up.

“That.” Kuwei pointed at a jar on the second to top shelf. He took it down and pulled the lid off. A small collection of white crystals was inside. He recognized the feel of acetone, a certain flammability that Inferni gravitated toward naturally. It was mixed with something far less alluring to create  _this_ , a substance that sang to every bit of his Inferni being while simultaneously making the rest of his body clench in fear. The amount of kinetic energy he'd dispersed should have kept it from being too dangerous, it still felt unstable. “That’s the source.”

“I thought you weren't good at science,” Wylan accused, throwing words Kuwei barely remembered saying at him.

“This isn't science, it's Small Science.” Kuwei's face worked of its own accord. He was an Inferni. “This is what I  _do_.”

“Demolition?”

“Ignition. Inferni can't create fire from nothing but we know what will make it happen. It's drilled into us.” His heart still pounding, albeit much slower, he asked, “What is this?”

“Acetone and hydrogen peroxide." Wylan waved a hand. "It's an experiment. Kaz wanted blasting powder a Fabrikator couldn't detect.”

“You're still working for Kaz?”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“...you're rich.”

“It relaxes me.”

It relaxed him. Creating a substance capable of blowing himself and anyone unlucky enough to be nearby up was  _relaxing_. “I don't know about a Fabrikator but no Inferni would let you walk around with  _this_ in your pocket.”

A tiny frown creased Wylan's brow. A curl, dark red and finely twisted, rested just above it. Kuwei wondered if all his hair was so red. Did he have Kaelish in him? They were known for their red hair.

“Then what would you recommend?” Wylan asked, dragging his attention away. Saints, he couldn't even spend five minutes with the man without getting distracted.

“Stop worrying about Fabrikators. No one uses them for fighting. The Zemeni might but no one knows anything about their techniques. A Corporalki is going to pay attention to the carrier's body. A Squaller is going to try to contain the blast. A Tidemaker, if they're worth their salt, will stand clear. The only people who're going to be paying attention are Inferni and this is as likely to kill you as them.”

Wylan's eyes shifted. Not irritated anymore. Calculating. “What if I needed to get it past a Fabrikator anyway?”

“They'd have to know what it was.” Kuwei didn't know how to explain kinetic energy, explosive velocity, or primary explosive in Kerch. He must have missed that day in class. “The,” he grimaced trying to find the word, “possibility is an Inferni-“ he lost the word again, “-sense.”

“You can sense an explosion?” Wylan's eyes widened. “Are you telling me you just stopped an  _explosion_?”

“Yes?” Kuwei had thought that was obvious.

Wylan's face said it was not.

Kuwei put the lid back on the jar. He badly wanted to destroy the substance. He settled for bleeding the rest of its energy away. Let Wylan get mad at him. There was no way he was letting  _anyone_ use this.

“Why are you making explosives?” he asked.

“It relaxes me.”

He had said that already. Kuwei hated the words. They were so reckless. Wylan had risked his life for a hobby. And yet it made sense. The Inferni at the Little Palace loved blasting powders. They took a childish glee from crafting them and watching them explode, then pouring their power into the flames to make them reach higher. It didn’t matter where they were from: none of them had ever been on the other side of an Inferni attack. They’d heard stories of their people hunted down by  _drüskelle_  or taken by the Imperial army but they’d never lived it, never heard the whisperings among the Grisha underground that it’d be better to slit an Inferni child’s throat than risk exposing a bloodline. In some ways, it was all just a game to them. Wylan could be much the same. The Kerch fought no wars. Even if they did, a mercher would pay to keep his son out of the line of fire.

Well, maybe not Wylan's father.

“How did you know I was down here? I thought Inferni couldn’t make fire, just control it.”

A thousand years of Grisha theory knotted and unknotted in Kuwei’s head. Matter couldn’t be made from nothing. That was so basic it’d be insulting to say. Inferni couldn’t make fire because fire wasn’t  _made_ , it was converted. That’s why Inferni were classified with the Etherealki, the Summoners. Only Materialki could fundamentally alter the state of matter. A Heartrender who tried their hand at tailoring could make it stay for a while but it would fade if they didn’t also have a Fabrikator’s gift.

“I can make fire as well as anyone,” Kuwei said. “And I can sense it twice as well as most people. That  _thing_  you were making was going to kill everyone in a ten yard radius.”

Even as the words came out of his mouth, he knew he was overreacting. The potential had been there but there was nothing to say Wylan was going to set it off. He wasn’t that reckless. 

Wylan’s cheeks pinked in what must have been shame. He began cleaning up. When he came around the table, his soft side brushed against Kuwei’s.

“Sorry,” he muttered. A little louder, he said, "I didn't know it was going to be that unstable.”

Kuwei gnawed on his lip.

“Blast potential!” he said, snapping his fingers.

“Huh?”

“The word I was looking for."

"Ah."

Wylan's stomach growled. Rather than being embarrassed, Wylan patted it and smiled. It almost looked like he was smiling at it. “That's my cue to finish up for the night. I'm going to the kitchen. Do you want to come?”

In the kitchen, Wylan started pulling out the white bread the Kerch mercher class was so fond of. He cut a slab and spread it liberally with butter, sprinkling small pieces of chocolate across the top. He bit into the creation before remembering Kuwei. “Do you want some?”

Kuwei waved him off. He'd much rather watch Wylan eat than endure more wheat. Wylan wasn't offended. He worked his way through what was left of the loaf, his stomach visibly expanding to accommodate, then brew a pot of tea. Kuwei did accept a cup of that, dousing his with considerably less honey and sugar than Wylan.

Wylan picked idly at the fabric of his waistcoat. It was spreading tight earlier and no wonder. Two weeks with Wylan and his midnight snack didn't even make him blink. That waistcoat had to be cutting into him now. Kuwei supposed Wylan was too proper to unbutton it. Not too proper to inhale a loaf of bread in front of his guest, though.

Wylan hiccupped. He placed one hand over his mouth, his eyes wide in surprise. He hiccupped again and his belly jumped, the hand that had been picking at his waistcoat seconds earlier going with it.  _Cute_.

Not for the first time, Kuwei wondered if Wylan knew what he was doing to himself. He couldn't possibly think his clothes were tightening of their own accord. Kuwei, who only saw him every few days, could see how quickly he was growing, how he'd landed himself in this predicament.

Did Wylan?

Kuwei sipped his tea. Wylan, his hiccupping having subsided, was already on his second heavily doctored cup. He was clearly enjoying his food. He just enjoyed it fast.

“I should go back to bed,” Kuwei said. One danger had passed. Sitting here, watching Wylan obliviously stuff himself with food was another. The man was all but married. He was happy in his life. This was not going to happen.

Kuwei did want to patch this up, if only so he could have more chances to see Wylan like this, mouth full and stomach fuller (and fatter, his mind supplied, fatter and fatter).

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking down at the light reflecting in his cup, “for startling you. This reminded me of something.”  _Bad_ , his mind finished. It was very intrusive today. “It wasn’t that dangerous. If your bomb had gone off, it might have blown up the shed but that’s it.”

Wylan snorted. “I think not letting me spray my innards all over the lawn is apology enough.”

“It would be a lot of innards,” Kuwei agreed. Instantly, heat poured over his face. Why did he say that?

Wylan raised an eyebrow. He took a bite of his bread, chewed it slowly, and swallowed. He was so polite in his eating. “You know, I wouldn’t mind if you read to me again. I get tired of spending so much time with my mother.”

"Or I could teach you to read," Kuwei offered.

Wylan shook his head. "It won't work." There was a trace of bitterness on his lips. Kuwei's chest ached for that tiny bit of emotion. "I've tried."

"Right. Well, um, I mean, I wouldn't mind-" Saints but Wylan was tearing into that  _suikerbrood_. His waistcoat was straining around his soft belly, creases forming at the sides and along the lines of his buttons. Why didn't he just buy bigger ones? Every single one was too small. “Uh, just- why don’t you hire someone to read for you?”

Wylan tugged on the flap that was creeping up to reveal a tight undershirt. “I could. When Jesper's here, he usually does it. But something’s come up and he’ll be spending another few weeks in- wherever he is, so I could use the help.” When Kuwei didn’t immediately answer, Wylan added, “At least join me for lunch tomorrow. I could use the company.”

Kuwei’s eyes flicked to the round curve of Wylan’s stomach, then his face. “That would be nice.”

 

* * *

 

That night was a turning point, though in what Kuwei couldn’t say.

They settled into a routine of Kuwei reading to Wylan while he ate. Marya would help him in the mornings and Kuwei would take over around lunch, after which Wylan would graze until dinner. They'd talk after, late into the evening over cups of coffee. Mostly, Wylan would fiddle with his buttons and talk about Jesper. He'd ask Kuwei about Ravka and was surprised to learn how much he kept in touch with Nina. Kuwei didn't talk much, mostly listened and watched Wylan eat cookie after cookie. It was obvious Wylan was gaining weight and just as obvious that he wasn't bothered by it.

He wondered what Jesper would think when he returned. If Kuwei was noticing when he was here every day, surely the change would seem stark to someone who had been away so long. 

He wondered, too, whether Jesper would see the difference between his swollen lover and thin Kuwei and find favor in it. He didn’t know whether he hoped so or not.

 

* * *

 

One week turned into two, then three. Wylan didn't explain where Jesper was or the delay. He certainly didn't ask Kuwei to read any of Jesper's letters, if there were any.

Mostly, he just ate.

 

* * *

 

The dessert tray was Kuwei's best friend. It had saved him from countless difficult transitions between reading and conversation. Within seconds of him finishing the last document of the day, Iske would arrive and place the dishes down. Wylan would be absorbed for a few minutes by whatever she had brought and Kuwei by him. By the time Wylan was done, Kuwei would have thought up something to say. And while he waited, mind whirring, he would watch.

At this point, it wasn't a question of whether Wylan was gaining weight. His belly jutted in front of him when he walked. It spread over his lap when he was sitting. The shiny, black buttons of his waistcoats were cutting lines into his fleshy middle. Even his sleeves were getting tight. His appetite was waging an all-out assault on his wardrobe and it was winning.

Wylan did not seem to notice.

Dessert today was waffles with cherry compote and sweet cream. Wylan, after having a ludicrously large lunch, attacked his stack with gusto, finishing it in no time, barely even stopping to breathe while he did so. Sitting back, he sighed, pleased either with the food or himself. He picked at his buttons. The threads holding them threatened to break with one deep breath. 

"Have I told you about Jesper's real job?" Wylan asked, meaning the one he did when he wasn't traipsing the world doing dangerous things for a crime lord.

He'd mentioned it a time or two. Kuwei shook his head and took a sip of tea. He could listen to to Wylan talk about Jesper forever. He was clearly in love with the man, which was not a fun thing to think about, but it was also Jesper, so Kuwei could understand.

"He used to meet with this Fabrikator-"

"You've told me," Kuwei said. Listening didn't mean he had to hear the tedious bits again.

“Right. The Fabrikator he was working with suggested he apprentice with a gunsmith." Wylan smoothed the fabric of his waistcoat down. Kuwei had actually started fantasizing about stealing one. He wasn't sure what he'd do with it if he succeeded. Wylan stifled a burp. "To get used to how guns are made. We couldn't get in touch with any Zemeni Fabrikators so it seemed a good idea.” Kuwei could imagine. The rogue Grisha living in Novyi Zem wouldn’t be keen on even a generous offer from a Kerch merchant, not when it could be a slaver trap. As for Zemeni-born  _zowa_ , they didn’t often leave their home country. “Then I guess he started showing off the smith's wares, so now he does shows for the tourists.” He picked up his fork and scraped his tines through the lingering cherry compote on his plate. “It makes him happy.”

 _What makes you happy?_  Kuwei wanted to ask.  _Eating? Because that's all you ever seem to do._

The more he thought about it, the softer his mental tone became.

"Aren't you worried," he asked, not wanting to ruin the mood but unable to avoid the topic, "that Jesper hasn't come home yet?"

"Of course I am," Wylan replied. He eyed Kuwei's unfinished plate of waffles. Kuwei pushed it toward him. Wylan speared the top waffle and cut it with a sort of resigned determination before shoving a piece in his mouth. "But Kaz won't tell me anything, Jes hasn't sent any letters, and I can't very well write him, can I?"

"I could write one for you."

"And send it where? I have no idea where he is. Or," Wylan said, shoving another too big piece of waffle in his mouth. Manners, Kuwei had noted previously, tended to go out the window when he was angry, "if he's even okay.

"He'll be fine, Wylan. It's Jesper. He can do anything."

Wylan looked down at the hand Kuwei had unwittingly laid on him. Kuwei snatched it away.

"I didn't-"

"It's alright." Wylan wheezed a bit before his next bite. "You're right. I'm sure he's fine."

 

* * *

 

Soon, Kuwei replaced Marya in the mornings. Reading didn't bore him, just dry his throat, and his mind was occupied with learning new words and improving his Kerch. Wylan seemed fascinated the first time Kuwei stretched his fingers and called the flame from the candle to him, turning it into a ball before letting it go. After that little bit of interest, Kuwei couldn't stop.

There was so much you could do with fire. He made spirals for Wylan, flourishes and arcs, little sprays of sparks that fizzled out before they could touch down on anything flammable. He sucked the heat out of candles and urged Wylan to touch them, drinking in the wonder in his blue eyes. He carved wax with tiny flicks of his fingers while he told Wylan about the Ravkan art of ice sculpting and the contests that Inferni worked hard to win.

And every day, he watched Wylan eat.

The man grazed endlessly, to the point that Kuwei had gotten in the habit of hopping down to the kitchen to ask for more of all sorts of food and drink. Wylan was exceptionally neat when he ate, never getting anything on his black clothes. Ravka had nothing like it. Grisha wore blue, purple, or red  _keftas_  and servants white and gold. Black was a color reserved for the long-gone Darkling. Among Kuwei's own people, it was the color of scholar-officials, who wore it in long, flowing robes and see-through hat.

Against Wylan's pale, soft skin, the color was transformed to something exotic, alluring.

And as Kuwei watched (and, perhaps, asked the cook to use finer, heavier ingredients, more milk, more sugar, heavier cream), that black became tighter until one day, Wylan unbuttoned his tight, tight waistcoat in front of Kuwei, exposing an undershirt with gaping buttons. Between those buttons, was some of the palest, creamiest skin Kuwei had ever seen.

Still, he didn't buy new clothes.

Wylan shouldn't be walking around in clothes that ill-fitting. Kuwei wondered when the servants would suggest a refitting. At the Little Palace, Fabrikators took your measure without asking and new  _keftas_  were deposited on your bed whether you thought you needed them or not. Keon, the valet, should take a hint and do the same.

Kuwei hoped it wouldn't even occur to him. He wanted to see one of those polished buttons pop off.

Every day, he sat on the edge of Wylan’s desk and helped him through his papers, all the while casting furtive glances at the growing gaps, the straining seams. Wylan barely strayed from the house. He kept his walks short, mostly to the Exchange. It was harder for him to conceal Kuwei’s assistance than Jesper’s, he said, though Kuwei suspected he just didn’t want the exercise. He could get as much work done sitting at his desk eating as he could sweating his way down to the Exchange.

He was getting lazy. He was working longer hours since Kuwei still couldn’t read Kerch that fast and he was taking more of his meals at his desk. Kuwei started taking his there, too. The cook always sent up huge portions, which Kuwei would invariably take a few mouthfuls of and hand over to Wylan. The emptier the plates sent back, the bigger the next day’s portions.

So it was that Wylan didn’t just grow forward, he grew wide. His thighs spread under him and the sides of his belly pushed out. His backside jiggled, his thighs rubbed together, his stomach was a never empty ball Kuwei desperately wanted to touch.

And still, the buttons held.

It was a miracle they did. One tap of Kuwei’s finger and they would surely burst.

It drove him awake at night. He imagined it, that one touch. A simple caress and Wylan’s clothes would come undone. They’d be at his desk, Kuwei leaning over him, those ruddy curls framing that gentle face. One touch and the buttons would burst. That belly would flop out, pale and beautiful against his dark clothes, and Wylan would be so startled, so humiliated he wouldn’t protest when Kuwei leaned in to kiss him.


	4. Chapter 4

 

It was amazing what you could get used to. 

A month ago, Kuwei would have married anyone who could have smuggled him out of Wylan's house. Now he was looking forward to spending the rest of the day with the man.

He smiled as he walked down the hallway. He'd just finished his morning exercises, letting the candle's flame dance across his fingertips, in and out between his metacarpals, brushing against the webbing, and then returning it to the wick. Energy soared through his veins. The world was bright, shiny new, filled with incredible smells and wonderful sights.

 _And none_ , he thought as he walked into Wylan's office, _more magnificent than this._

"Kuwei! Thank Ghezen you're here." Wylan sat up in his chair excitedly, round belly rolling forward into his lap. He pointed at a letter on the desk. "Tell me that is what I think it is."

Only mildly curious, Kuwei picked the letter up. It was a thin envelope with no return address. He turned it over and slid his finger under the flap, ripping through the seal.

He unfolded the letter...and felt his heart stop.

Wylan was looking at him expectantly, eager even. His eyes were bright, shiny, and so, so very blue. Kuwei's throat worked.

"It's from Jesper," he finally managed.

Wylan beamed. "I know. I recognized his handwriting."

Kuwei couldn't breathe. He gripped the edge of the desk. His chest was pressing down on his lungs, constricting them. His eyes scanned over the letter, short but so fond. Love dripped from the page. It slid hot over Kuwei's hand, then ran down his arm and pooled at his feet, unwilling to touch him any longer.

He glanced up at Wylan.

"Read it to me," he urged, happier than Kuwei had ever seen him. "Please," he added when Kuwei's eyes narrowed. "I need to know how he is."

Kuwei closed his eyes. After a long, torturous second, he managed to take a breath and open them again.

"They finished the job. He writes that they'll be home in a week. It's postmarked from Tuesday."

"So five days," Wylan said.

"Five days," Kuwei agreed. Seas permitting, in five days, Jesper was coming home. Kuwei had nearly forgotten he ever would.

"What's wrong?" Wylan asked, misinterpreting Kuwei's dismay. "Did something happen to one of the others?"

His man home, Wylan wouldn't need him anymore. His excuses to stay here would be gone the second Jesper returned. Kuwei had never meant anything to Wylan.

He was never going to see those buttons pop.

"I was just thinking."

"About what?"

 _Drowning myself in a canal._  "The Kaelish. That's who the job was for." Kuwei paused. He'd only ever met two people from the Wandering Isle. One was Jesper's father. The other was an Inferni who razed an entire village after he found them preparing to drink and sell his missing brother's blood. "They're not nice people."

"No," Wylan said. "I suppose they're not. I'm glad Jesper's away from them." He smiled. "I can't wait to have him home."

 

* * *

 

Wylan hiccupped. His belly, pressed tight against his waistcoat, bounced so high he put a hand against the side and groaned.

His dessert plates, speckled with chocolate cake crumbs, were stacked in front of him. It was a little tower of excess Kuwei had watched steadily grow all evening.

A thrill went up Kuwei's spine, cutting through his growing headache. If not for those dessert plates, he would have excused himself once the reading was finished, gone to his room, and begun hashing out his plan to get out of here.

The dessert plates had stopped him. Two at first, they had grown to four and then six as Wylan called Iske back again and again. By the third time, Iske didn't even bother pretending Wylan was going to share and placed both slices of cake in front of him. Her line of sight had brushed against Kuwei's as she left. They had shared a dull, resigned look, Iske because her employer had lost all sense of self-control and Kuwei because try as he might, he was never going to enjoy the fruits of that loss.

Wylan was slightly chubby no longer. In the weeks, now nearly months Kuwei had stayed here, he had pushed well past that. He was now achingly, breathtakingly plump. His belly wobbled when he walked, a soft globe that pressed out from underneath his shirts even before his first meal. Through those shirts, Kuwei could see the outline of breasts, small but yes, full, hold-in-your-hands-and-squeeze  _breasts_. His thighs were pillow-soft, spreading wide when he sat.

His ass was still flat but that was the Kerch for you.

It was no wonder Kuwei had become so distracted, even as Jesper's absence stretched longer and his return grew more uncertain. No more. These few days were the last. He would wait until Jesper came back. That would be it. He would see the man and then steal away in the night and head...somewhere. He still hadn't figured that part out. The  _stadwatch_ had surely forgotten about him by now. He'd have little problem getting through the streets. But most of his money was still in Ravka, Shu Han and Fjerda were out, and booking passage to the Wandering Isle would be asking to get his throat cut. Novyi Zem was mostly farmland and its main crop was  _jurda_. Kuwei didn't think he could stomach being surrounded by it again. Which left only Ravka, the Southern Colonies, and Kerch.

A hiccup caused Kuwei to glance up.

Wylan was leaning back in his chair. His hand rested on the top curve of his stomach. It tried vainly to manage a few slow squeezes Kuwei recognized as a lazy massage he only did when he was too full to move.

"Are you okay?" he asked, just to hear Wylan pant out a labored "fine".

Wylan fidgeted in his chair, plainly comfortable. It wasn't hard to see why. The fabric of his waistcoat gaped around his buttons and even those of his undershirt were straining. They had been decent this morning, before Wylan had eaten his way out of them.

You would think he'd know by now and wear clothes that didn't pinch before he sat down to breakfast. But no. The merch was completely oblivious.

Wylan scraped his chair back. In a feat of superhuman strength and with a face of pure misery, he stood, back arched and hands tightly gripping the armrests, his belly, as always, leading the way. What Kuwei wouldn't give to slip a tape measure around it.

Wylan was unsteady on his feet. He clutched one hand to the top of his stomach and the other to the round bottom curve, and lurched out of the room.

“Do you need to be sick?” Kuwei asked, hopping after him. Wylan was either going to puke or collapse into the nearest flat surface. His face was pained. Kuwei's nerves thrummed against his skin. He couldn't help noticing this wasn't the first time Wylan had eaten himself to this predicament. If only Kuwei could massage his belly, he might be able to-

But no. That wouldn't be accepted.

Wylan, he reminded himself sternly, belonged to someone else. Even if he did wish to change that, it wouldn't be for Kuwei. They weren't even friends. Wylan barely tolerated him.

“I just,” Wylan wheezed, palm rubbing across his waistcoat. It wrinkled deeply at the top curve of his belly and clung like a second skin to the sides. The buttons were begging Kuwei to release them from their misery. “Whoo. I just need to sit down.”

Kuwei bit his lip to stop himself pointing out the obvious, that Wylan had been sitting in his office.

He opened Wylan's bedroom door, earning himself a grateful smile. Wylan stumbled to the edge of the bed, where he sat, breathing heavily.

“You should take your waistcoat off,” Kuwei said.

Wylan frowned up at him.

"It's tight. I mean, it looks tight."

It looked sinful. That waistcoat was the hottest thing Kuwei had ever seen. There should be a portrait of Wylan commissioned just like this, thighs spread wide to accommodate his distended belly, hand resting on the side, face flushed red, a trace of sweat darkening his curls and plastering them to his face.

It took all of Kuwei's willpower not to push him back and climb on top of him. He wanted so badly to press his hardness against that round curve, that mix of soft and hard, wobbly fat and packed hard gut. Kuwei's face grew hot. He wanted to rut against Wylan like a dog in heat.

“You should take it off,” he repeated. Wylan hadn't been paying him any attention. He was too busy tugging his waistcoat down in a vain attempt to keep it from riding up over his pudgy hips.

“Take what off.”

“Your waistcoat.”

“Oh,” Wylan said. He had given up pulling the waistcoat down and settled smoothing out the wrinkles (not wrinkles,  _cuts_ , they were slicing into his sides where the fabric couldn't stretch any longer. Try as Kuwei might, he couldn't concentrate long enough to remember what he had looked like  _before_  Wylan started eating). “You mean my vest. Yes. I should.”

He made no move to do so.

Instead, he, to Kuwei’s utter amazement, slapped his belly. A sharp, ringing sound filled the room as it shook temptingly, plump and perfect, filled with enough food to feed ten people.

Kuwei forgot how to breathe. Wylan was hunched over, watching his stuffed belly quiver, completely unaware that Kuwei was dying in front of him.

Wylan let out a sigh. He flung his arms out wide and fell back onto the mattress. His belly mounded high in front of him. The buttons were little discs pushed out, desperate for freedom and getting closer with every shallow breath.

Kuwei wondered what it would feel like if he slid a palm over that waistcoat. Warm, certainly, maybe even hot. But would it be hard? Or soft? Would the fabric give under his fingers or was he packed so tight there would be no room at all? Kuwei desperately wanted to know.

Wylan blew out a breath. It puffed his lips out and made him look even more bloated than he was.

"Ghezen, I'm getting so fat." He ran a hand over his stomach. Kuwei had watched him eat lunch. He'd seen dinner and dessert. A whole family could have eaten half of what Wylan did and been satisfied. It was gluttonous to the obscene. It was the hottest thing Kuwei had ever seen. "I can't help it." He sat up on his elbows. He cupped the bottom of his stomach and held it for a moment, a slight furrow between his brows. Then he lifted it and dropped it. Kuwei's eyes nearly crossed from the sound. 

"Look at that," Wylan said mournfully, looking at Kuwei with his breathtakingly blue eyes. "You don't have to be polite. You can tell me how fat I'm getting."

Kuwei could not on account of having recently swallowed his tongue. "You aren't-"

"No, no, I know." Wylan patted his stomach and sank back onto the pillows. He seemed to be smiling to himself as he ran a hand over that tight waistcoat. "I shouldn't have had that last slice of cake."

He shouldn't have had the last  _five_.

Wylan walked his fingers up the curve of his stomach. He laughed quietly. Kuwei wondered if it was possible to be drunk on food.

"I've been indulging entirely too much lately. I should probably go on a diet. Do you think I should?" Wylan paused. He shook his head. "I don't think I could do it. One complaint from this thing and I'd be right back to stuffing my face."

"You don't stuff your face," Kuwei protested, which was a lie and a half.

Wylan sighed. "Oh, but I do. You only see part of it. I get so hungry at night. I ask the cook to leave me a midnight snack but Iske brings it too early and I end up eating it. Then I have to get another one."

Wylan eyed Kuwei from his reclined position, one chunky bit of flesh in his left hand. He squeezed it. Heat sizzled in Kuwei’s veins. His vision began to blacken around the edges from keeping his eyes focused so long. He blinked but, when he opened his eyes, the spell wasn't broken.

Wylan looked amused.

“You can leave now,” he said.

 

* * *

 

He shouldn't tease the boy. But Jesper had been gone  _such_ an awfully long time and who could say whether he'd still find Wylan attractive when he did. And Kuwei was right here, getting starry-eyed every time Wylan fiddled with his buttons.

He wouldn't do anything about it, of course. Just have a bit of fun. Kuwei's ears turned the most wonderful shade of bright red when he was embarrassed.

Wylan started undoing his buttons of his waistcoat. He popped the buttons on his pants. For a moment, finally able to breathe again, he lay back and sucked in air, just letting his tummy expand as far as it could. Who knew eating could be such an ordeal? Out of breath and he hadn’t even had everything he wanted.

Dinner had been three and a half bowls of  _hachee_  poured over mounds of potato puree and a whole, eleven inch rice pudding tart. Accompanied by plenty of cool, smooth lager, it had filled every inch of him and left him gasping, unable to finish the last of the stew. Then the cook had sent up plate after plate of chocolate-cherry cake and he simply couldn't refuse.

He massaged his tummy, easing the stinging red marks his clothes had cut into them. He shouldn’t be disappointed he couldn’t fit more. A whole  _vlaai_. That was an accomplishment on its own. Wylan sucked in a breath and used it to push his tummy out that little bit further. It was almost to the point where he couldn’t see over it.

Wylan smiled. There were two days yet before Jesper returned. He could make it.

He propped himself up on one arm, letting his belly brush against the mattress. He palmed it, enjoying its weight and suppleness. The top half was hard, burdened by his meal, but the bottom was soft and molded easily to his hand. He ran a finger along the marks his pants had cut into the skin around his hips. It stung slightly, dug into so long it had nearly forgotten what shape it was supposed to be in. Most people would have taken such marks as a negative, a sign they needed to cut back. Not Wylan. 

Red marks meant he was growing.

And growing was good.


	5. Chapter 5

Jesper rolled his shoulders and groaned.

Kaz’s job had taken far too long. Jesper still didn’t fully understand the scheme behind it, only that half the job had been spent hopping islands along the Bone Road and the other half traveling there. They had stolen a bit of green marble or recovered it or, possibly, found it among a mess of treasure in what the locals had assured them was an abandoned cothold. In a sense, it was abandoned. By humans. Once they'd dispatched the pack of wolves that had taken up residence there, the job had been surprisingly easy, just sorting through piles for what they wanted.

Which was why the previously disintetested locals pointed knives and scythes at their faces and demanded they hand the treasure over. Jesper had lost the handsomest pair of cufflinks in the ensuing gunfight.

Because yeah. Guns against peasants armed with knives? No contest.

All that for a bit of marble as big as his thumb. Legend had it, it was dipped in the blood of Saint Brigd of the Isle and capable of the kind of miracles the Kaelish slit Grisha throats for. Flakes of brownish-red _something_ had come away when Jesper turned it over in his hand. After that, he made Rotty hold it. 

He and Pim had offered to take it to Leflin, where the client waited. Jesper was more than willing to give up a chance to see his father’s homeland for two days’ head start south.

They’d pushed the sails and Jesper had gotten here a day early. Unfortunately, for all their speed, it was the dead of night and Wylan, love of his life, was surely asleep.

“Mister Jesper,” said the servant girl who answered the door. Never one for talk or pleasantries, she waited with one hand on the dark wood.

Jesper smiled. As usual, it had no effect on the dour woman.

“Would you like to come in, Mister Jesper?” Iske asked after a long moment.

“I would very much like that, yes.” He stepped inside. The front hall was dim, lit only by a lamp sitting on the bannister. Jesper looked up the stairs. He tapped the handles of his revolvers. There was no chance Wylan was up and waiting for him.

"How has he been?" Jesper asked, mourning his lost welcome. Wylan’s enthusiasm when he returned from long jobs was unparalleled.

"Fine," Iske muttered. Cheerfulness was not her strong suit. She lit a second lamp and offered it to Jesper. "Eating fit for two. Getting on with that Shu fellow what came to stay with us."

"Shu fellow?"

She sniffed. "He's like you, Mister Jesper, only not, if you catch my meaning." She looked up and down the stairs before leaning in and whispering " _Inferni_."

Jesper could connect the dots. "How long has he been here?"

"A couple weeks. Mister Wylan picked him up from the  _stadwatch_ station."

The  _stadwatch_ station? He'd have to ask Wylan about that. It sounded like a story.

"Thanks for the light," he said. The extra dazzle he added to his smile did nothing to wipe the surly look off her face. Some people. He would win her over one of these days.

Jesper took the stairs up, his bones sighing as they felt the familiar wood under and around him. There was nothing like coming home. Who would have thought a farmer's son would one day live in a Kerch mercher's home as anything other than a servant? Not even Jesper, in all his dreams had thought this would be the way his life would go.

He opened the door to Wylan's bedroom. It creaked softly. Jesper pulled off his shirt and shoes, then his pants. He blew out the lamp before sliding into bed.

Wylan turned back to look at him. The moonlight streaming through the window spilled over him. He looked pale and lovely, his tousled curls splayed across his forehead.

"Jes?" he mumbled sleepily.

Jesper kissed his neck. "Go back to sleep, merchling."

"But you're here."

"And I'll still be here in the morning. It's time to sleep."

Wylan grumbled something that sounded like a protest. Within moments, though, his breathing had evened out. Jesper slipped his arm over Wylan's waist. As he settled against his love, he noticed there seemed to be a lot more to Wylan than he remembered.

He hooked his chin over Wylan's shoulder and tangled their legs together. Whatever it was, it could wait until the morning.

 

* * *

 

The man Jesper woke up to was definitely not the slightly squishy Wylan he remembered. Low light and fatigue hadn't dulled his senses.

Wylan was still asleep. It was his turning from his side to back that had woken Jesper. He'd opened his eyes for a minute and been unable to close them since.

Jesper pressed two fingers into a belly much plumper than the one he'd said goodbye to and watched them almost be swallowed.

"Saints, merchling," he muttered. "What have you been up to?"

Now that he was looking, he could see the softness wasn't contained just to that plush belly. Wylan's once barely pinchable hips were now rounded, soft handfuls. His thighs were announcing their plans to marry. And his chest. Now there was an improvement Jesper couldn't say he hadn't thought of. He cupped the left one, pleased at how it fit in his hand. It was soft and slightly pointed, like a girl's.

"Of course, you'd go for those," Wylan said, yawning and stretching his arms over his head.

"They're nice," Jesper said, thumbing over Wylan's sensitive nipples. He grinned at Wylan's little gasp, then leaned forward to kiss him. "Missed you."

"I missed you, too."

Jesper resisted the urge to say _I can see_. He searched himself for a reaction negative or positive. All he could come up with was a desire to tease Wylan, same as he'd always had. He'd blush so pretty with some poking and  _what have you been eating, merchling_ s. Saints, Jesper was looking at what? Twenty-five, thirty extra pounds?

He grabbed Wylan's face between his hands and kissed him deeply. As much as Jesper wanted to explore Wylan's new planes, touching was going to be a minefield. Jesper had a buffet in front of him. It was beautiful and tempting, tables groaning with food, and he didn't know which dishes were delicious and which would give him the runs. Worse, asking could get him banned from the whole thing.

Wylan squirmed and pulled away. "Je-esper," he whined. "At least let me get cleaned up."

"I don't mind you dirty."

The scandalized look on Wylan's face was everything.

"Jesper Fahey, you will let me brush my teeth before kissing me!"

"Okay, okay." He watched Wylan slide off the bed. Every angle was like seeing the weight anew. His sides jiggled when he stood up. His thighs brushed fully against each other.

It was still Wylan. And Jesper still wanted to kiss him.

So he waited about five minutes before following Wylan into the bathroom and doing just that.

 

* * *

 

“Are you who I have to thank for my blushing bride?” Jesper asked.

“Excuse me?” Kuwei asked. He was burning up, the heat only increasing with every second spent in Jesper's presence.

He'd come in the night, which was poetic and romantic and gave Kuwei exactly no time to prepare for his arrival. The servants hadn't been in a flurry of excitement that morning. That should have tipped Kuwei off but he had been thinking that this was his last day alone with Wylan. There had been no warning before he walked into the office to find Wylan backed against the desk, Jesper's hands on his shoulders, and their mouths pressed together.

They had broken apart, Wylan daylily pink and Jesper beaming.

Kuwei, for his part, had debated the merits of leaping into a canal over setting himself on fire.

He'd fled to his room because,  _clearly_ , his services weren't needed and stayed there until Jesper knocked on his door. In retrospect, Kuwei thought he had handled that rather well.

“Wylan isn't normally so...” Jesper turned his hand in a circle. He was leaning against the doorway, arms loosely crossed over his chest. It was an unfairly attractive stance.

Fat? Engorged? Overfed? Kuwei wasn't to blame for even half of it.  _He_ thought Wylan looked wonderful.

“Flush,” Jesper decided. “He tells me you've been taking care of him.”

Every part of Kuwei's body burned. “He needed help with his papers.”

“Is that so,” Jesper purred. Kuwei's heart weakened. Never mind throwing himself into a canal, he was just going to die right here. “How long are you going to be staying with us?”

How likely was it Jesper could see right through him? 

Kuwei had come to see Jesper, all tales of sightseeing aside. It was a stupid desire based on a horrible thing that had happened to him years ago and now here he was, wishing Jesper would stop talking to him. Wylan had to be hungry. He usually had a midafternoon snack right now, a stack of waffles or a heap of pastries with a side of cream. His stomach had to be growling, if he wasn't eating already.

And Kuwei was stuck here, listening to Jesper not so subtly tell him to leave.

He'd book passage tomorrow or find somewhere else to stay in Ketterdam. He could- he could send Wylan anonymous sweets, baskets of pastries and Southern Colony fruits. Yes, he could do that. The Ravkans paid him plenty. If he told them where he was, they'd send more. He could keep that tummy full even if he had to be on the other side of the city to do it.

Even as he thought it, Kuwei knew it was hopeless. Wylan might eat the food but what would be the point if Kuwei wasn't here to see it? He'd just have to leave. That was all there was to it.

“Eat lunch with us,” Jesper said. It sounded as welcoming as a Little Palace invite, the kind Kuwei had been given a dozen times before. 

 _Why don’t you join us for lunch?_ meant one thing:  _We hate you._

 

* * *

 

Lunch was a fine affair of thick pea soup with bacon-topped white bread. Wylan mostly concerned himself with licking his spoon clean. Jesper was always happy for a chance to dominate the conversation and no one else would notice if Wylan took a third or fourth helping. He was, after all, growing.

There was an unreadable expression in Jesper’s eyes when Wylan finally sat back, hands clasped over his pleasantly full tummy. It sat on his lap now all by itself, substantial and soft.

“You’re not worried about being discovered?” Jesper asked, continuing a conversation Wylan hadn’t been paying attention to. He pressed the heel of his hand into it and stifled a burp. Jesper shot him another look, this one almost- no, Wylan really couldn’t tell what that was. Interest? Disgust?

A little shiver went up Wylan’s spine.

Kuwei tapped his nose where that strange little outward curve began. Ah. They were talking about how Kuwei had managed to stay in Ketterdam undiscovered for so long.

“It's a product of my mother's people. Makes it hard to recognize.”

Jesper shot Wylan a doubtful look. He spread his thumbs in a shrug.

Who knew? There hadn't been any incidents that Wylan was aware of. Most in Ketterdam have gotten the idea that Wylan wasn't his father, which meant there wasn't a lot of suspicion regarding his comings and goings. Those with an opinion of Jesper mostly thought he'd hoodwinked Van Eck's poor, hopelessly gay son into giving him access to his house and purse. Kaz's dealings were so many and varied that making the connection between an indisposed Councilmember, his estranged heir, and the legally dead son of the Chief Chemist of Bhez Ju, inventor of  _jurda parem_ , would require someone very interested in a footnote of Ketterdam’s history.

Since most people didn't care to put in that much effort, the general consensus was that a missed opportunity for profit was not of great interest to a mercher and a Shu by way of Ravka could only be a Grisha or a trader. There was, after all, a reason Kaz had left Kuwei here.

“Cook sent these up,” Willemijn, Iske's replacement on her days off, said as she placed bowls of apple pudding in front of each of them. Wylan’s was much more generous than the other two. He felt more than saw Jesper’s eyebrow raise. Feeling spiteful, Wylan decided he was going to finish this off and ask for more.

It would have been better if the recipe had been good or if he had even been particularly fond of apple pudding. Instead, he founding himself forcing down first one, then two bowls of lumpy, sweet pudding he didn't even want to eat.

He was breathing heavily by the time his spoon touched the bottom of the bowl. He wasn’t stuffed, just a little overfull. If only he could take his waistcoat off or maybe unbutton his pants, he would have enough room.

He pressed his hand against the side of his stomach, hoping it would ease the pressure. He could feel two sets of eyes on him now, one brazen, the other much more cautious and interested. Wylan blushed. He couldn’t help it. Here he was, not even that big, trying to show his boyfriend up for daring to look at him like he was an embarrassment, and his clothes were too tight to even do that.

He’d just not breathe as much. That would do it.

He gestured to Kuwei and his barely touched bowl. Before he could even ask whether he was going to finish it, Kuwei was depositing the bowl in front of him, spoon and all. Wylan took it out and set it aside. He dug in, forcing a spoonful down his throat, feeling the pain sharpen as fabric strained around him. He should have had this shirt replaced weeks ago. It was much too small and confining.

Kuwei cleared his throat. “I have something I have to do,” he squeaked and ran off.

The door had only just shut behind him when two faint  _pings!_  rang out. Wylan's eyes widened in horror. He looked down, praying he was wrong but already knowing what he would see: the deep hollow of his navel surrounded by as much of his pale, red-lined tummy as could push through.

“Well, now, merchling,” Jesper drawled. He got up and  _stalked_ , steps sure and catlike, over to Wylan. He stood in front of Wylan, forcing his chin up. His flush was absolutely burning across his face, chest, and ears by now. Jesper's eyes roamed over Wylan’s form languidly, a deeply amused expression on his handsome face. With no warning at all, he poked one long, dark finger into the thickest, fattest portion of Wylan’s stomach. “I guess it's no mystery where this came from. I just have one deep, burning question: did you do  _anything_ other than eat while I was gone?”

 

* * *

 

Jesper shoved Wylan against the bedpost. He kissed him fiercely, almost ravenously, and Wylan melted into him, hips canting forward. Jesper paused, uncertain of the stomach now blocking so much of his way.

Wylan arched his back, pressing that intruding tummy forward. Couldn't Jesper see how round it was, how soft, how begging for his attention?

Jesper’s eyes met his, then went down to the widest, most obvious part of him. Wylan smiled tentatively and Jesper...grabbed his hips instead. Wylan sighed through his nose. Another time.

Twining his hands in Jesper's short, tightly-curled hair, Wylan pulled him down for another kiss with those perfect lips. Ghezen, but he'd missed this.

Jesper squeezed his hips hard and Wylan gasped. He broke away, panting.

Jesper smirked. He looked so self-satisfied, Wylan couldn’t bear to tell him climbing the stairs left him breathless now. He pressed a hand against the top of his tummy, trying to stop it heaving.

Jesper let go. Sitting down on the bed, legs spread, he held out his hands. “Come here, merchling. Let me see what you've been doing to yourself.”

Wylan straddled him. His cheeks burned when Jesper made a surprised noise at his heaviness.

He’d been so disappointed this morning when Jesper didn’t say anything. They’d been apart for so long and Wylan had gotten so soft, yet Jesper didn't mention a thing. He hadn’t breathed a word about how much bigger Wylan clearly was, how all of his indulgence had gone straight to his stomach, how that stomach was pressed between them, concrete proof that, except for his mouth, Wylan had spent the last two months being gloriously, incredibly idle.

In the unforgiving morning light, he’d started at Wylan’s thighs, working his way up, except, when he got to Wylan’s stomach, he’d skipped it to touch the soft flesh of his chest. Wylan had squirmed. He couldn’t very well tell Jesper to move his hands down, that his much softer tummy, the one that was sitting so nicely on his thighs, was where they should be.

Just one squeeze. That’s all he’d wanted. One squeeze and a  _Saints, Wylan, you really let yourself go, huh? I was gone for two months and you decided to spend that time getting_ fat.

Then Jesper would turn him over, pin him to the bed, and drag his cock down Wylan’s completely unflat torso and tell him all the dirty things he’d been thinking about doing to him while he was on the Bone Road.

Jesper hadn’t done any of that.

But now he was starting in on what was left of Wylan’s buttons. The two that had popped off earlier were still rolling in the dining room; the others were holding on for dear life. Wylan hadn’t deliberately picked out his tightest waistcoat to wear today, but here it was and the buttons that had not already succumbed were waging war on Jesper’s deft fingers.

Wylan laughed softly, feeling his stomach brush against the back of Jesper’s fingers. Jesper's eyes flicked up. The heat of them seared Wylan to the core.

Jesper struggled with the buttons for another moment, then simply willed the metal to soften and slide out of the holes. Wylan held his breath, watching.

It was the oddest sensation. With each slithering button, the strain got tighter until, at the very last, his stomach burst from his confines and surged forward onto his thighs. Ten pounds added, instantly.

Jesper stared. His eyes roamed over Wylan’s chest and stomach. He didn’t say anything, didn’t touch, just looked. Wylan’s cheeks blazed.

Then, Jesper’s hands settled on Wylan’s tummy and Wylan about came from that touch alone. Jesper cradled it, studying it like you would an exotic animal.

He looked up, gray eyes full of mischief. “Really, merchling, you didn't have to starve yourself for me.”

He kissed Wylan deeply. One hand cupped his jaw. The other slid down his side and squeezed the thick love handle he found there. Wylan kissed back, winding his arms around Jesper's neck. His tummy squished between them and Jesper moaned as much from that as Wylan pushing him back onto the bed. Jesper's hand roamed. It squeezed the gentle curve of his waist, ran down his spine, and kneaded his backside. 

The kiss turned languid and slow. They savored each other, even as Jesper’s erection pressed against Wylan’s thigh and Wylan hardened in turn.

As his legs fell open and Jesper settled between them, all Wylan could think was how perfect it all was.

 

* * *

 

Jesper had to admit Iske had tried to warn him.

Eating for two. More like eating for five.

The polite thing to do would be to ignore it but, besides the fact that polite wasn't one of Jesper's finer attributes, he had seen Wylan eat himself into a stupor enough times not to be completely blown away by this result.

Jesper had always thought of Wylan's softness as, well, there. Not good, not bad. Just a thing that made him a little bit cuter, a little more obviously the pampered merchling he was. It wasn't supposed to be a real part of the attraction. But now he was finding out he was kind of into it.

He was thinking Wylan might be, too.

Wylan had to know he was gaining weight. He knew and he wanted Jesper to comment on it. He wanted Jesper to tease him, to poke him and prod him, and most of all, lie next to him in bed and see the burgeoning fruits of his labor. He must.

Those thoughts wound through Jesper’s mind all day long. It made the most sense. He couldn’t imagine Wylan, sharp, quick-witted Wylan, being oblivious to the changes coming over him.

What if he was, though? Kuwei had come not long after Jesper left and Saints knew those two didn’t get along. Kuwei could barely stand to be in the same room as Wylan. Every single meal, because Jesper couldn't not invite him to join them, Kuwei would excuse himself before dessert was even over. He would hurry off and sequester himself in his room, as if even a half hour was too much time with Wylan. A strain like that could cause some people to eat their frustrations. Maybe the softness Wylan had always had had simply expanded without his knowing.

It wasn’t that Jesper minded. How could he? Wylan had always been beautiful. The extra weight hadn’t changed that. Nothing could, certainly not when Wylan’s hips had thickened so nicely Jesper wanted nothing more than to bend him over and grab him by those gorgeous love handles.

His merchling had gotten so soft and Jesper needed to touch him  _everywhere_.

He just didn’t know how to express that. If he said it didn’t matter, Wylan might take offense. If he told Wylan he was gorgeous, Wylan would take it as a platitude. If he pointed out that none of Wylan’s clothes seemed to fit him anymore, Jesper might as well find a different bed to sleep in.

Something had to give. Jesper couldn’t avoid it forever.

Because, Saints, this was not going to end. Every time Jesper turned around, Wylan was chewing. Or he was taking heavy drafts of brandy or lager or something that filled him up and made him look positively gravid. And if he wasn’t, he was touching himself. He pressed a hand to the side of his stomach, smoothed his shirt over his tits, rubbed the pouch of skin under his chin. He couldn’t seem to wear a shirt when they went to bed and, if he did, it invariably got bunched up under his tits while he squeezed and poked and otherwise manhandled the potbelly Jesper could  _see_  getting bigger.

By the end of his first week back, Jesper was certain he was going to go insane. He couldn't go a minute without hearing the merchling suck or chew or swallow or, Saints' forbid,  _burp_ , all the while massaging a stomach that clearly didn’t need what Wylan was putting in it. And yet he kept piling more in, kept showing off all his new, creamy skin, kept giving every sign that he knew  _exactly_  what he was doing while not giving a single one that he wanted Jesper to acknowledge. It was maddening.

Kuwei clearly thought so, too. He couldn't stop looking at Wylan like a lovelorn  _Komedie Brute_  character, played by an actress whose dialogue was mostly sighs. The business he kept claiming he had to take care of was of the southernly sort. Jesper wanted to make fun of him for it so badly. He would, if he weren’t in the same predicament.

So now, with Wylan determined to eat everything in sight and Jesper still trying to navigate his new body, Jesper was off in search of the best-tasting sweets he could find. He'd buy as many as he could, bring them back to the house, and let Wylan eat his fill.

After all, if there was one thing Jesper could trust, it was that Wylan wouldn't say no to a few more indulgences.


	6. Chapter 6

Wylan studied himself in the mirror. He'd gotten quite vain, all things considered.

Jesper, who was no stranger to vanity himself, came up behind him and wrapped an arm around Wylan’s chest in the groove that was forming under his soft pecs. The other he placed on Wylan’s well-padded hip and squeezed.

“Don't you look ravishing,” he said, kissing Wylan's jaw. Wylan smiled. He cupped Jesper's cheek before going back to looking at his own reflection.

He wasn't fat, per se. His face was still thin, his thighs only so big around. It was just his belly and sides that stood out. Piggish, that's what he was. A spoiled merch who could barely stop eating long enough to tend to his accounts. Wylan found the idea rather thrilling.

He didn’t even have stretchmarks yet. Just the one, under and to the right of his belly button, a pretty, purplish wend. A beauty mark. Wylan pressed against it, feeling the easy give. He leaned back against Jesper. Jesper didn’t even stumble.

Wylan let out a breath.

Was it cruel of him to want this? Jesper had found his happiness. In training, learning what he could do, connecting by his guns to the mother who died so tragically, he eased the anger and resentment that had festered inside him for so long. He accepted now his father's reasons for holding him back, understanding in a way he hadn't previously the fear grounded in the ways of a barbaric country. The fractures in their relationship had healed. 

And he loved Wylan, even if Wylan hadn't heard him say it yet. The life they had made together was good. Jesper was happy.

Wylan was, too. He just wasn't content.

When he looked in the mirror, he liked most of what he saw. How could he not? The softness, the girth, the way he was taking up more and more of the glass was exhilarating. But in his face, the face Jesper loved so much, Wylan saw a man he could not stand.

Even with his edges blurred, he was undeniably Jan Van Eck’s son. One who had had a few extra sweets, granted, but one who could easily slip back into the role of the cowed, fragile child, weak and scared, hating the limitations his mind placed on his body.

The resemblance was getting weaker. Every bite, every pound pushed him closer to erasing that lineage. There would be many more still until he was well and truly big.

How long would it take until Jesper struggled to get his arms around him? Even Kuwei could still do it easily. 

Probably.

Wylan flushed. He shouldn't be having such thoughts. He'd been with Jesper for years. He didn't want to change that. It was just, Jesper had been gone so long and Kuwei had a way of looking at Wylan like he was the only person in the room. It meant nothing. 

When Jesper was gone, Kuwei was a handsome face to focus on. Now Jesper was back. It was time to put those thoughts away.

“What is it?” Jesper asked, making Wylan smile. Jesper ran his hands up and down Wylan's sides, pinching at the roll forming under his shoulder blades. For someone who'd barely commented seriously on Wylan's weight, he spent an awful lot of time touching.

"I don't know..."

 

* * *

 

“...what do you think?” Wylan asked, spreading his shirt tightly over his stomach. It was very noticeable today. The almond cookies Jesper had brought home were enjoying a decent amount of company.

“Hmm?” Jesper asked. Was this a game? He dropped a kiss on Wylan's shoulder. Saints, he smelled wonderful.

“What do you think?” Wylan repeated, which clarified nothing. He tilted his head back and peered up at Jesper and, oh, if that height difference wasn’t one more contrast to love between them. Jesper wanted to press a kiss to that pale forehead and feel those ruddy curls bunch up against his chin.

What he did not want was to guess whether Wylan had suddenly become concerned about the fact that no amount of sucking in could make that belly of his flat again.

This left Jesper with two choices.

Choice one: deflect. Tell Wylan how gorgeous he looked, which was absolutely true.

Choice two: point out the elephant in the room.

Jesper placed his bet.

“Merchling, if you tell me this is a surprise, I'm going to have to start questioning your vision.” He leaned back on his hands. His eyes flicked from Wylan’s face to his swollen middle. Jesper didn’t think it had been empty in the entire time he’d been home. Considering the size of Wylan’s burgeoning love handles and, all Saints,  _tits_ , those sweet, pretty, pert little tits Jesper had been taking increasing liberties to fondle and kiss, the merchling hadn’t felt a hunger pang in weeks. “And perception.”

Wylan huffed, which was not at all helpful.

"What is it?" Jesper asked. He pressed a kiss to Wylan's curls and glanced at their shared reflection. From head on, you couldn't even see Jesper, just his hands on Wylan's arms and his head above him. It was just pale, creamy skin everywhere, looking delicate enough to bruise with a single touch.

“You won't touch me,” Wylan suddenly accused.

Jesper blinked.

“Wylan." He could not find words. “Wylan. I have made love to you every night since I got back.”

“Yes. But you won't touch this!” Wylan spun around. He grabbed that newly chunky gut of his and shook it. Jesper's cock twitched.

“I have so!”

“Twice! The day after you came back.” Wylan sounded almost heartbroken. Jesper had to be imagining the glint of tears in his eyes. “That’s it!” His voice turned miniscule. His eyes shifted downward as his hand rubbed a loose circle around his stomach, the skin shifting, jiggly and unfirm, with every rotation. “I’ve been paying attention.”

Jesper took a step closer. Energy vibrated under his skin. Arousal thrummed in his veins. He wanted to pace. He wanted to press Wylan against the nearest flat surface and kiss the breath out of him. “I didn't know you wanted me to.”

“Of course, I wanted you to!” Wylan said, head going up, eyes flaring.

“Merchling, do we need to have a discussion about how I can't tell what you're thinking if you  _don't tell me?_ ” Even as the words were leaving his mouth, Jesper wanted to smack himself in the face.

Wylan's mouth snapped shut. His bottom lip jutted out stubbornly.

Jesper reached for him. “Merchling...”

"I'm not going on a diet," Wylan said. "I don't care if you tell me to. I won't listen." His voice and bottom lip trembled. His hands covered his stomach in a gesture that was almost protective.

"When's the last time I told you to do anything? C'mere," Jesper said, holding his arms out. Things were always better when they were touching.

Wylan folded into him, soft and thick and smelling like almonds and butter. Jesper chucked Wylan's chin. 

"What's this all about, hmm? You look amazing, Wy. You always do. And even if you didn't, I wouldn't ask you to change for me."

"Well, damn, Jesper, I didn't think I looked terrible." 

And now he was cranky. Jesper suppressed a sigh and ran his fingers through Wylan's curls.

"What is it you want me to say?"

"I don't want you to say anything. I want you to touch me!"

Jesper decided not to point out that they were, in fact, currently touching.

"What if I wanted to for myself?" Wylan asked.

"Wanted to what?"

“Change." His face still pressed against Jesper's chest, Wylan took a deep breath. His belly expanded, not so much brushing as pushing into Jesper's torso. "What if I  _wanted_ to get fat?”

The words stopped Jesper flat. “What?” He almost hoped Wylan repeated himself if only because there was no possible way Jesper’s ears were functioning correctly. “I mean I kind of got you weren't watching your figure but  _what_?”

Wylan’s eyes were wide and filled with uncertainty. He took Jesper's hand and placed it on his stomach, the gesture of a pregnant woman announcing her state. It should have been comical, Jesper's hand on Wylan's round, intensely unpregnant gut.

It was, for reasons unknown, the hottest thing Jesper had ever seen.

Wylan hadn't been exactly skinny when Jesper left. He'd always had a bit of baby fat, a middle that Jesper's fingers could sink into if he pressed the slightest bit. He hadn't on purpose, figuring Wylan had enough insecurities without Jesper drawing attention to another. He'd wanted to touch it, wanted to touch all of Wylan, but after enough time avoiding it, he'd started doing it unthinkingly.

And now Wylan, at the biggest Jesper had seen him, looking round and relaxed and a hundred steps away from the wisp of a boy Jesper met that day in the tannery, was telling him to touch it.

Their eyes met. Jesper kissed the join of Wylan’s neck and shoulder, loving the way Wylan’s head tilted, curls tumbling to the side. He smoothed his hands up Wylan’s back, then thought better of it. He brought his hands to the front and dug into that soft, pale globe, making Wylan throw his head back and moan.

“I want,” Wylan gasped, heartbeat fluttering against the fragile skin of his neck. “To gain weight. I want it so bad, Jes. Even if you don't."

Jesper pressed his fingers in deeper. What would it be like bigger? He squeezed a handful and watched Wylan’s mouth form another pretty ‘o’.

“Is that so?”

 

* * *

 

“A lot,” Wylan said, his words getting faster. Jesper's fingers were kneading into him and it was as good as sex. Better, even, since every movement of Jesper's wonderful Fabrikator fingers brought a hot rush. “I want this to be a start. Actually, it’s already a start.” His cheeks flamed. It was so hard to talk about it but he wanted to. He wanted Jesper to know exactly what he meant because Wylan was not going to stop, not even for him. “I’m  _already_  gaining weight.” Jesper snorted. “On purpose. I like it.”

“Is this why you've been eating everything in sight?” Jesper's hand moved to Wylan's side. He pinched a thick roll and rubbed it between his fingers. Wylan bit his lip. He’d ached for Jesper’s hands on him, for him to dig those strong fingers into him and tease him about how quickly he was letting himself go. He'd gotten half of what he wanted and he didn’t know how to ask for the rest. “If that’s what you want to do, I can work with it.”

Wylan wasn’t sure he believed him.

The doubt must have shone on his face because Jesper let the roll go. Putting his hands on either side of Wylan's face, he drew him into a kiss.

“Wylan, I thought you were the loveliest thing in the world the first day I met you. Then I got to know you and found out you had a brain to go with that pretty face.” He kissed him again, teeth dragging against Wylan's bottom lip. “I don't care if you're a twig or a damn sphere. I like  _you_.”

Jesper’s eyes raked him up and down.

“But,” he added, grabbing a chunk of Wylan's tummy, a move that made the two dozen almond cookies and pitcher of lager filling it flutter and slosh around. “I'm not entirely against this either. And, since you’re so set on keeping it, I might as well enjoy the bounty.”

“I want to get fat,” Wylan said because clarity was important. “ _Really_  fat.”

“Merchling, when I said sphere, I meant it. Personally, I’d prefer you to have  _some_  shape-”

“A sphere is a shape!”

“So it’s sphere we’re going with, then?” Jesper’s gray eyes were teasing. He really was unbearably handsome when he was being an ass.

“I don’t know yet.” Jesper’s hand was still gripping his exposed tummy. His thumb rubbed back and forth, the movement burning something hot inside Wylan. “Are you saying you'll help me?”

Jesper pressed that perfect pair of lips against his. His lips parted and Wylan’s knees weakened. A long, wonderful minute passed. Jesper tried to pull away and Wylan pulled him back in, his back arching, fat tummy pressed against Jesper’s firm waist.

“Absolutely,” Jesper said when Wylan finally let him go. He smiled as he pushed Wylan's hair behind his ears. “I would do anything for you.”


	7. Chapter 7

They were disgustingly happy.

Kuwei was going to puke. Or claw his insides out.

He couldn’t stand this. He also couldn’t bear to leave.

He needed to see, to know they were happy. In them lay something he could never have and he needed, more than anything else, to know why he had wanted first one, then the other, and now could have neither.

He was fifteen when he felt the first stirrings for Jesper Fahey. Not long after, Wylan, wearing his face, won Jesper’s heart. Kuwei never gave up hope that that meant something. It had to. That tailor-made face was his and Jesper had wanted it.

Convenient, wasn't it, how Kuwei kept forgetting Jesper had pushed him away when he realized the boy he was kissing wasn’t Wylan.

It had never been anything but a dream. Kuwei had ignored the signs and prayed the impossible would happen. He'd fixated on this all, knowing Ketterdam was a place he was never supposed to return, letting the hope build because he had run out of hope everywhere else. It was stupid, so, so stupid.

Kuwei clenched his hands into the fabric of his pants. He needed to know he was wrong. The affection came from a source much deeper and truer than a botched kidnapping attempt. He had to have it hammered into him, stamped across the inside of his eyelids until he could never close them again without knowing the truth that neither of them would ever be his.

He was just an unwanted houseguest. Jesper would read to Wylan now. He would warm Wylan's bed and caress his aching belly when he ate too much. It had taken a few days but Jesper had come around to the weight. He slung his arm around Wylan's waist during dessert now and let his fingers drum on Wylan's fleshy side.

A couple more days. Then he’d leave.

With several loud clinks that threatened to break the porcelain, Iske gathered their lunch dishes onto a tray.

"Another, Mister Wylan?" she asked. Not for the first time, Kuwei was impressed by her expressionlessness.

"Please."

She bowed curtly and headed out the door.

"Excuse me," Kuwei said, scraping his seat back. Wylan had already ploughed through two stacks of waffles. If Kuwei didn't leave now, he might spend the rest of his life sitting here watching. There was only so much penance he could do in one day.

Wearily, Wylan nodded. He speared a chunk of waffle. He studied it for a second, then sighed and shoved it in his mouth.

Jesper’s shrewd gray eyes were studying him. Kuwei didn’t dare meet them.

There was a Squaller at the Little Palace who never liked Kuwei. She arrived the same time he did, a late discovery from a town along the southern border so small she sighed and told everyone she was from Sikursk. She knew the southern border and she knew he’d only ever been to the Sikurzoi as a visitor. The look in Jesper's eyes was the same as Gilina's. Watching. Knowing.

Kuwei fled.

 

* * *

 

“What do you want to do about Kuwei?” Jesper asked. Man, the kid had hurried right on out of there.

Wylan choked on his waffle.

“He’ll be gone on the first ship that’ll take him.” Wylan coughed into a napkin, then folded it and put it to the side. He resumed eating.

Wylan, Jesper had long since learned, could do almost anything he set his mind to. If he said he wanted to get fat, by the Saints, he was going to blow up.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Wylan swallowed and cut himself another piece of waffle. Chew, swallow, talk. Chew, swallow, talk. That was how their meals went now. It was almost adorable how concentrated he was on his task. It remained to be seen whether that concentration would last when Jesper was sucking him off. “Then what did you mean?”

It was possible Wylan hadn't noticed. He was so set on his goal, he’d spent the last few days eating nonstop. From the time he rolled out of bed until he rolled back in, he ate. He grazed endlessly, _hutspot_ , _vlaai_ , waffles, croquettes, any and every sweet Jesper had ever heard of, all of it washed down with copious amounts of coffee and lager. Most days ended with him flat on his back, stuffed tummy mounded above him, imploring Jesper with wide, beseeching eyes to massage the soreness away.

"Glutton," Jesper would say as he sank his fingers into an increasingly thick layer of pudge. "Piglet. My chubby little merch"

"You've developed quite the appetite," he'd tease, cupping one of Wylan's small tits and kissing it. "I wonder where it all goes?"

If he was feeling particularly bold, he’d tell Wylan how little time they had before the bed needed reinforcing. "I could do it now,” he’d say as he wrapped one of Wylan’s curls around his finger. “Oh, but what if it's not strong enough? We should wait to be sure. You are growing awfully fast."

Wylan flushed and squirmed every time, his cheeks pink as if he was actually embarrassed by his appetite. Jesper would never tire of it.

It was the rest he wasn't so sure of. He didn't know what he thought about his boyfriend's new curves. He didn't mind them. He just...didn't really care for them, either. It was as if Wylan had gotten a new outfit. It was different but asking whether it was flattering or not assumed Jesper cared about Wylan's clothes in the first place. Mostly, Jesper just liked that Wylan liked it.

(There was one thing. Sometimes, when Wylan's belly was packed to the brim and he was hiccupping, almost sick from the mass of food inside him, Jesper got so hard diamonds would shatter against his dick. _That_ he was still trying to puzzle out.)

Jesper tapped his fingers restlessly against his thighs. “You can't tell me you haven't noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

“Stupid isn't a good look on you, merchling.” Wylan's mouth dropped open. There was syrup on his lip. Jesper licked his thumb and wiped it off. A blend of apple and pear, he decided as it hit his tongue. Not bad. “The way he looks at you.”

Kuwei wasn't nearly so discriminating. His appreciation was written across his face. He liked the weight, the eating, the clothes Jesper couldn't get the servants to replace fast enough, every last bit of excess Wylan engaged in. What Jesper was struggling to like, Kuwei already did.

Wylan huffed. “I never took you for the jealous type.”

“Jealous? Me?" Jesper laid a hand on his chest, feigning offense. "Wylan Van Eck, I would never. I was just thinking how nice it would be to give him a test run." He glanced at Wylan innocently. "You know. See what that tight little body of his can do."

Wylan's face turned _red_. "Jesper, I have never cheated on you and I am not going to start now!"

"It's not cheating if I'm there," Jesper pointed out.

"If you're-" Alright, so occasionally Jesper presented things in backwards order just to make Wylan's big brain short-circuit. It took a lot of effort to do nowadays. Jesper had to take his opportunities where he could. "You'd be there?"

"Yes, light of my life, I would." Jesper dragged his finger through the syrup on Wylan's plate. He pretended not to know why Wylan could possibly be watching him as he sucked syrup off it. "I can't imagine our little chemist minding."

After all, anyone with functioning eyes was aware of the magnificence that was Jesper Llewellyn Fahey.

 

* * *

 

Kuwei shouldn’t be listening in. They weren’t even loud enough he could pretend the sound woke him. It hadn’t, of course. The vibrations had. In the quiet house, late at night, the floor picked up every movement. Someone walking along it. A door swinging open and closed.

Days ago, it would have meant nothing. That was before Marya left for the lake house, leaving Kuwei the only other occupant on the third floor.

Kuwei leaned against the wall with his head tilted up and back. Light poured from underneath the door, illuminating a patch of the dark hallway.

Jesper’s voice was deep, a purring rumble against Wylan’s higher range. Kuwei couldn’t make out what they were saying, only feel the heat coming off their bodies and the air moving between them. They weren’t fucking, not yet, but the atmosphere was there.

What were they talking about? Their adoration for each other, surely. How perfectly fucking happy they were, just the two of them.

Maybe they were talking about him, laughing at how obviously, hopelessly lovesick he was. Or maybe it was less congenial, more irritable. Kuwei was still here, Kuwei wouldn’t leave, why had he come at all?

He was so lost in thought, he didn’t hear the door open.

Kuwei's eyes flew open in alarm. He moved to hide but it was too late.

Jesper stepped out and ducked his head around the corner. “I thought I'd find someone here.” His eyes raked Kuwei up and down. Ice-fire coursed over him. Kuwei was fifteen again, staring at his most foolish crush. “Get inside.”

This was not happening.

He was ushered into their bedroom where Wylan lay shirtless, surrounded by silken sheets, looking rounder than a person had any right to be, his hands rubbing slow circles into his pale, bloated belly. One question burned through Kuwei: how much had he eaten?

“Jesper, where did you- oh.” Wylan fell quiet as Jesper guided Kuwei into the bedroom.

He and Jesper exchanged glances.

“We're doing this now?” Wylan asked. He was shirtless. As Kuwei watched, he stroked a hand over his pale, distended gut.

Wylan’s eyes were too knowing as he met Kuwei's gaze. Kuwei looked away guiltily

“Come here,” Wylan said.

Kuwei couldn’t move.

Jesper’s laugh was scathing. “Oh, he’s got it _bad_.” He gripped Kuwei’s upper arms. “Do you want to touch?” There was something dark and heavy in his voice.

"I look positively pregnant, Jes." Wylan was still rubbing circles. "Of course, he wants to touch."

"You look a good deal more than pregnant, gorgeous."

"He looks swollen," Kuwei said before he could help himself.

Jesper grinned. "Doesn't he? A proper merch.”

Wylan smiled. He gestured to Kuwei, who, entranced, stepped toward him.

He climbed onto the bed, feeling heady and not at all himself. He'd never seen Wylan bare-chested. He looked enormous and yet somehow smaller than Kuwei expected.

With Wylan's guidance, he pressed his fingers against the top of his stomach just under his ribs.

“It's hard,” he said in surprise.

“There's a lot in there,” Jesper acknowledged, patting it. Wylan’s stomach made his hand look tiny as his long, dark fingers sank in and nearly disappeared under the pudge.

Wylan sighed happily, relaxing back into his pillows. He gestured for Kuwei to touch him.

An emperor, Kuwei thought. A fat, indolent emperor, surrounded by his courtiers.

“He's beautiful, isn't he?” Jesper asked, breaking Kuwei from his trance.

“Yes,” he breathed.

"He probably hasn't told you this but he's gained almost fifty pounds this year. Forty-eight, to be exact." Jesper's hands ghosted over Kuwei's arms. "I know. I could hardly believe it myself but look at him. Tell me he isn't getting soft.

"You might think that's what being a spoiled mercher gets you. But I think you might've noticed, Kuwei, how fast the weight's been coming on. In fact, I'd bet on it."

Kuwei's heartbeat pulsed against his throat.

"Now why would that be? I'm going to let you in on a little secret: our Wylan's doing it on purpose." Kuwei's breath stuttered on "our Wylan". "Every bite, every swallow, all of it is just to add a couple more pounds to this luscious body of his."

"You know what else I'd wager, Kuwei? You like this. A lot. Am I right?"

Kuwei nodded, unable to look away from Wylan's lowered eyelashes. He'd never thought of Wylan as pretty before but now he was stunning, almost delicate-looking with the faint indents of those collarbones over two small breasts and a gently sloping waist. He was rubbing circles into his red and white mottled belly, the only hard thing about him.

Well, not the only thing.

"He was just finishing his dinner. He waited until I got home to eat it," Jesper said. "Why don't you help him?"

Kuwei's brain clicked, synapses firing futilely over and over. "I'm sorry?"

"The plate, Kuwei."

There was a plate on the bed. A platter, really, the ruins of a vast meal spread across it.

"Pick it up. The fork, too," Jesper encouraged. It was as if he knew Kuwei was struggling with control.

Kuwei reached for the plate. He tried and failed to tear his eyes away from Wylan. He was so pale, so white. Red marks crisscrossed the bottom of his stomach. His pants, Kuwei realized. They were far too tight.

Kuwei picked up the fork. He speared a piece of metworst and, with shaking hands, lifted it to Wylan's pink lips.

Wylan's eyes closed halfway as he chewed. He hummed in pleasure.

Kuwei tried for another piece. His hands were shaking too much. This close to Wylan, he felt like he was either going to burn up or shake apart.

"I'll take that," Jesper said gently, reaching for the plate. "Why don't you rub his stomach? He likes that."

Kuwei swallowed and nodded.

And did nothing.

He'd touched Wylan once. He couldn't do it again. This was wrong. Wylan was taken. Kuwei shouldn't be here.

"Relax." Jesper's voice was soothing. He gripped Kuwei's shoulder with a warm hand. "Here. Let's take this slow. Kiss me."

Kuwei forgot how to breathe.

"No? How about Wylan?"

“Jesper,” Wylan said quietly, gently, dragging Kuwei's eyes back up to his blue-blue eyes, “Give him time. My stomach," he told Kuwei, holding his gaze. "It hurts.”

It was all the urging he needed. Kuwei's hands flew into place. He kneaded the taut skin as Wylan made little sounds of encouragement.

“Wy,” Jesper said.

Wylan turned, opening his mouth to accept the _metworst_ Jesper held before it. He closed his lips around the tine and let Jesper pull it out, then chewed and swallowed before opening his mouth for more. Jesper was ready with a bigger forkful.

Jesper glanced at Kuwei, who had gotten distracted. He hurried to massage Wylan’s belly. Wylan hummed around the next bite, obviously pleased with this arrangement.

Kuwei was too absorbed in his task to really watch. He worried about catching Jesper’s attention again. Whatever this was, he wasn’t going to have it end because he made a wrong move. Though he would allow himself some liberties.

Still massaging the top of Wylan’s stomach with his left hand, he moved the right down to squeeze at the plump bottom curve. It wasn’t firm at all but soft and jiggly, easy to squish between his fingers. Wylan’s back arched slightly, pressing up into Kuwei’s hand. Kuwei took that as an encouraging sign. He squeezed again and began seeking out the softer areas of that vast expanse of skin. His stomach, his actual stomach, the one that was packed hard with food, was up top. Further down, around his navel, it began to soften. Anything below that jiggled at the slightest touch.

With Jesper keeping Wylan occupied, Kuwei explored this uncharted territory. He pinched at the curve around Wylan’s deep belly button, took a big handful of his side, and squeezed the fat over his hip. He wanted to touch his soft-nippled breasts but he didn’t dare go that far. Whatever lines there were, he couldn’t see them. He hedged his bets and kept below Wylan’s chest. He contemplated how deep that sunken navel went and tried not to think about how much he wanted to spread Wylan’s legs and take him right here.

“No more,” Wylan finally said, turning his head away. His nose wrinkled delicately.

“Aren't you lucky.” Jesper flashed white teeth. Kuwei’s throat ran dry. “There's nothing left.”

“Really?” Wylan asked. He struggled to sit up and gave up when all he'd accomplished was a great deal of jiggling. “I can't have eaten all of it.”

Jesper poked a finger right between where Kuwei was kneading. There was no give at all. _Emperor_. “You did, my love.”

Wylan laughed breathlessly. He cupped his belly and let it go, causing it to crash down with a heavy quiver. He took in a shallow breath. It came out as a short puff of air. “You must think me an utter pig, Kuwei.”

Kuwei stuttered. He couldn't remember the last time Wylan used his real name.

“I think you enjoy yourself,” he replied, studiously avoiding Wylan's face. His double chin, the one that had only really begun showing in the last few days, was out in full force. The sound of his labored breath, the product of a too full stomach pressing down on a pair of lungs, seared through Kuwei’s veins.

“Kiss him,” Jesper urged and Kuwei didn’t think. He just did.

If stepping into the room was his hand sifting through blast powder and approaching the bed was the activation, this was the explosion.

Wylan’s mouth was hot and warm. It tasted like sugar and mouth and everything Kuwei had ever wanted. Wylan panted around Kuwei’s lips. He was so full his breath juddered and he lay prone, unable to do much more than hold his jaw slack and let Kuwei kiss him. Kuwei could have stayed there forever, just press up against Wylan and never leave his side.

Jesper squeezed his ass.

"You'll tell us if there's anything you don't want to do." It wasn't really a question.

Kuwei sucked in a breath. "Yes."

"Take your clothes off." Wylan's words were a command.

Kuwei stripped quickly. He tossed his shirt to the floor and kicked out of his pants. His underwear tented around his cock but that could wait. Anything could wait, if Wylan would just keep looking at him like that.

"Have you done this before?" he asked, hand trailing lazily up Kuwei's bare chest.

Kuwei shivered.

"Yes." He was no virgin.

"My trousers," Wylan said, flicking his fingers imperiously.

Kuwei fumbled with the buttons. His fingers were trembling again. It was so bad Jesper batted them away and undid them himself.

"Pull them off," he said.

Kuwei's head was too foggy to protest. He grabbed at Wylan's trousers. With difficulty- they were tight, so tight, practically painted on to the merch's chubby thighs, he yanked them and his underpants down. Wylan's cock sprang free and bounced, wet-tipped, against the underside of his belly.

It was long if not thick, the tip flushed a deep, delicate pink. Precome drooled from the tip. Kuwei wet his lips.

Over the crest of Wylan's belly, their eyes met.

Kuwei leaned down and grabbed Wylan's shaft. He nuzzled his cock, taking in the heady, warm scent. He licked it gently, waiting for Wylan's encouragement, then ran his tongue up the heavy vein on the underside.

The bottom curve of Wylan's belly crushed the top of his head as he swallowed him down. He tasted of salt, hot and silky against Kuwei's tongue. He spread his lips wide and worked his way down, closing his eyes and relaxing his throat.

He hollowed his cheeks, bobbing up and down, living for Wylan's soft moans and the hand spread over his hair.

He choked, not on Wylan's dick but on the hand gripping the back of his neck. He pulled off, glaring and ready to fight.

"We won't have any fun if you make him come this soon," Jesper said. He held a vial of oil in his hand.

Kuwei rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and tried to swallow.

Jesper poured the oil into his palm. He rubbed his palms together to warm it. Kuwei's annoyance vanished. Jesper's palms were beautiful. They were a light tan against the brown backs of his hands, the break stark but well-blended at the edges, brown creases crisscrossing tan skin. The oil made them shiny and even more mesmerizing.

Jesper's long fingers reached out and grasped Wylan's cock. They slicked it, dragging up and down.

"Your spit's nice but I have to make sure it's wet," Jesper said, his lips spreading in that lazy, gunslinger's grin. "Wouldn't want you too sore tomorrow. What if we want to do this again?"

Kuwei swallowed.

Jesper poured more oil into his palm. "Look at Wylan," he urged as those fingers turned their attention on Kuwei. They circled his hole, one slick hand holding him by the join of his shoulder, keeping him steady.

Wylan's eyes were a dark blue, pupils wide with desire. They were a sea in which Kuwei would happily drown.

"Ready?" Jesper's words were flames licking at Kuwei's core.

Kuwei nodded. He straddled Wylan's lap and lined himself up with Wylan's cock. Using one hand to steady himself, he sank onto it, grimacing at the sharp burn.

Kuwei hadn't lied. He wasn't a virgin. But it had been a while.

He eased himself down, breathing shallowly. He just had to get acclimated, then he'd be good. 

Slowly, he pulled himself up and eased back down. He swallowed and nodded. Yeah, he was good.

He'd only ridden someone once. He barely remembered it, being drunk on _kvas_ at the time, but he knew it hadn't felt like this.

It wasn't his ass. That felt the same. It was Wylan. His stomach, more specifically.

Wylan's stomach didn't brush against him, it _dragged_. That plump, plush belly pulled against his skin. The top might be hard but the bottom was soft and pliant, a pillow surrounding his hard cock.

He began a slow rhythm, up and down, up and down. Wylan's cock was so hot inside him. It filled him up. He didn't know where to put his hands. He pressed them into Wylan's belly.

Wylan grunted. Kuwei snatched his hands away. He'd forgotten how full Wylan was.

"No." Wylan grabbed his hands, moved them higher. Kuwei fell forward against his bulk. He caught himself, pressing deep into that soft flesh.

Kuwei stared, stunned. His hands burned. His chest flamed.

Jesper chuckled. The sound snapped Kuwei out of it. Pressing against Wylan's stomach, Kuwei rolled his hips, grinding down on Wylan's cock. He all but rubbed his own into that perfect belly. He was so hard he ached. Precome beaded at the tip of his cock. As he moved, it left a slick line down the center of Wylan's stomach.

Wylan came with the sweetest sound. Kuwei paused, feeling the sudden slickness of Wylan's hot come filling him. 

The thought came to him suddenly. He ground his cock down into Wylan's belly, the friction almost too much to bear. He was so hard, it was so good, Wylan was so, so soft-

The guttural sound his orgasm dragged from him was barely human.

He collapsed against Wylan, whose big belly heaved as he gasped for air. Both of them were slick with sweat. After a moment, Kuwei rolled off and flopped onto the bed.

Lying on his back, he struggled for air.

"Isn't this nice."

Kuwei looked up, startled. He had forgotten Jesper was there.

The sharpshooter had stripped out of his clothes. His brown, trim waist could not be more different from Wylan's. And his cock...

It was thick, the shaft brown and the head a purplish-pink. Kuwei's mouth watered.

He dragged his gaze up to Jesper's face.

The gray in Jesper's eyes had gone nearly black. He grabbed Kuwei by the chin and kissed him. Kuwei melted into it. His chin tilted up, tired but keen to keep the embrace going.

Jesper's hand slid along his leg. It blazed up the back of his thigh and smoldered along the cleft of his ass. Kuwei's eyes fluttered as fingers spread him wide.

Jesper spoke words Kuwei hardly heard. He said yes without knowing to what he was agreeing.

Jesper didn't bother reaching for the oil before parting Kuwei's legs. Kuwei let them fall open with a groan. He was slick enough already.

He gasped as Jesper slid inside. His arms slid up Jesper's back and he dug his fingers into Jesper's shoulder blades. He wrapped his legs around Jesper's trim waist. This was much more familiar.

But Jesper wasn't some Ravkan nobody working through a barbarian fantasy or a border boy closing his eyes and pretending Kuwei was the enemy he'd never get to beat. He was kinder, surer, more practiced.

He was also far more beautiful than any man who had given Kuwei a quick tussle in a government-issued bed.

Jesper's hips snapped a steady rhythm, fast and sweet. He plunged deeper and deeper, withdrawing only to come back that much stronger. Kuwei clenched around him, already knowing that he would feel this tomorrow.

Wylan was so close that, when his hand reached out, Kuwei didn't even register it as foreign. He sighed, opening his mouth as fingers just on the verge of chubby trailed over his lips and curled inside. He sucked on them, imagining sugar but tasting only salt and skin.

Jesper snapped his hips.

Wylan's fingers were in his mouth, his come was inside him.

Kuwei's eyelids fluttered. His hands slipped from Jesper's shoulders as he lost himself to the pleasure.


	8. Chapter 8

Kuwei pressed an apple cookie into Wylan's mouth, adding a second before he'd had a chance to swallow. Wylan chewed with fervor. He wasn't fast enough. He'd barely finished the second before a third was at his lips.

His cheeks bulged. Kuwei wanted to poke them.

He shoved another cookie in Wylan's mouth.

Wylan's eyes widened but he didn't protest, only tried in vain to chew. For a second, Kuwei feared he was going to choke. This had been Wylan's idea. He had asked for this. Kuwei was only following orders-

Wylan swallowed. His lips parted.

“More,” he moaned.

Kuwei's heart and other parts swelled. Feeding Wylan was the best thing in the world. Getting to be here, in bed next to him, surrounded by empty plates, Wylan so full yet begging for more, was incredible.

These daily feeding sessions were taking their toll. Wylan's stomach was growing rapidly. It sat proudly on his mid-thighs now. A thick roll separated it from his soft breasts. His sides, dotted with more rolls, sloped down into plump thighs that, along with his round, dimpled backside, strained his trousers. Even his arms were growing soft and his fingers puffy.

Stretchmarks littered his skin, the weight coming on faster than it could accommodate. Kuwei had taken to spreading oil across Wylan's chest and back, his breasts and belly, wherever the skin was itchiest and most apt to split into raw, red lines. He’d started after hearing Wylan complain about the little, red lines running up his love handles. Jesper had laughed his head off when Kuwei had called them tiger stripes.

When he had asked why, Jesper had only quipped, "Tiger-pig" and doubled over laughing.

Kuwei stacked two cookies together and shoved them between Wylan's lips.

No one had been more surprised than Kuwei to learn that night wasn't a one-off thing. Neither Wylan nor Jesper had been ashamed to ask him to return. Slowly, Kuwei realized there was a gap he could fill. Wylan wanted to eat. He enjoyed it. But eating wasn't the goal. And, as assured as Jesper made himself out to be, he was at a loss what to do when Wylan was taking pained breaths and there was still food on his plate.

Forcing Wylan to eat was evidently something that never crossed his mind.

"Just a couple more," Kuwei said. He rubbed reassuring circles into the side of Wylan's hard-packed belly. "Then it'll be all over."

He meant the cookies. There were still the cheese and the spice cake. They weren't going to get anywhere if Kuwei let Wylan stop when he wanted.

This time, Kuwei stacked three cookies together.

In the name of efficiency, of course.

 

* * *

 

Wylan groaned and turned his head away. "I can't."

Still holding a fork with an enormous chunk of spice cake on it, Kuwei pouted.

Jesper smirked. He was mostly not watching, focused instead on cleaning his revolvers. Feeding Wylan his second dinner was a nightly activity and not a particularly interesting one until things started winding down.

Jesper glanced at the bed. Only a bit of spice cake was left of the buffet laid out around them. Wylan's upper belly was a hard, raised half-circle. He looked nauseous as he took shallow breaths through his open mouth. They probably should have stopped a plate ago with the  _nagelkass_. If there was one thing Jesper had learned, however, Kuwei wouldn't be satisfied until he'd pushed all of Wylan's limits.

"Fine," Kuwei said petulantly. "Later."

He acted as if it wasn't a feat Wylan had put so much away. Wylan's capacity had increased considerably of late. The merchling ate well past the point of hunger now, Jesper having to stop him several times before he made himself sick. Wylan always sulked when he did, even when he was pinned in his office chair by the mountain of food in his belly.

He was turning into a complete glutton, an absolute pig. Kuwei could stuff him with anything- rye bread,  _speculaas_ , smoked sausage,  _hutspot_ \- and he never complained about quality, only asked for more, red in the face, breathing shallowly, saying he wasn’t full just yet.

His figure reflected all the extra eating. His thighs were thickening; his chunky calves becoming chunkier. Rolls collected on his back and his ass spread half again as far as Jesper's own. His stomach, solid when he ate, pressed forward as big as a six month pregnant woman's when he was empty. And still, he kept eating and Kuwei kept feeding him.

"It won't be any good later," Jesper said. He twisted a bore brush in the barrel of the revolver that usually sat on his left hip. "Wy, weren't you telling me earlier how close you were to outgrowing another pair of pants?"

He'd actually said "I'm getting too fat for my britches" while lying on his back, attempting to do up the buttons. Jesper had laughed himself sick. Kuwei had been too mesmerized by how wide Wylan's gut kept the V of his pants flaps apart to join in.

Wylan sighed and flourished his fingers. Kuwei barely waited for his mouth to open before shoving the spice cake in. Wylan chewed slowly, brows knit in discomfort.

"One more bite?" Kuwei lifted the fork again, smiling beseechingly at the half-hearted glare Wylan shot him.

"Ungh," Wylan groaned. He gripped his swollen belly. Kuwei had already undone his belt buckle and was working on his ties. It was amazing how quickly he could get Wylan out of his clothes. Or maybe not. He'd had a lot of practice.

All in all, things were working out. Kuwei was able to give things Jesper struggled with, not adoration, of course, no one was better at adoring his no-longer-so-little merch but an instinct for what would take Wylan from overstuffed and achy to hot and bothered. Jesper, for his part, had someone else to tease and he had gotten good at riling the two of them up by playing them off each other.

The sight of Wylan flopped down on the mattress, pants and shirt undone, distended belly cresting high above him was becoming a regular one. Jesper couldn't say he wasn't fond of it or Kuwei cooing over Wylan, hands soothing as if eating yourself out of your skin was something Wylan deserved sympathy for. Jesper had much more of a mind to slap that fat belly and make Wylan come in his skintight trousers.

Jesper was enjoying himself. Wylan was, too- he got to eat whatever he wanted and have amazing sex. He beamed at the mirror now, something Jesper hadn't even realized he had a problem with. He'd practically yelped the first time he found stretchmarks on the jiggly underside of his belly- Jesper had tried not to roll his eyes and tell Wylan about the dimples on his ass. Really, it was a miracle they hadn't come sooner, Wylan was wider around than half the expecting mothers Jesper knew- and made Jesper and Kuwei come and look at them.

Jesper had never expected his boyfriend's rapidly expanding waistline to feature in their sex life anymore than a wanted Shu Grisha. But they did and honestly? It wasn't all that bad.

There was just one tiny problem.

"Kuwei," Jesper called. The kid's head shot up. Jesper grinned. "Let's give Wy a break. Come. Sit with me."

The look he received was one of complete confusion. Jesper, problem. Problem, Jesper.

Spoiling Wylan was well and good but other people could use some fun, too. Namely, Jesper "Gift to Mankind" Fahey.

(No one called him that but it was only a matter of time. He had a _fan club_.)

He patted his leg. "My lap is pretty comfortable. Wylan can tell you so."

"It is," Wylan hiccupped.

Kuwei's eyes were wide, white all the way around the gold. Jesper chuckled.

It took some coaxing- the boy was skittish as a colt when he didn't have Wylan to focus on (and that was another thing, Wylan didn't need that much attention. Sometimes, like now, he was just fine rubbing his hands all over his own self) - but Jesper managing to get Kuwei to perch on his leg. More like his knee, actually, but baby steps.

"You could at least undo the rest of his buttons."

Kuwei craned his head to look at Wylan, who at the moment was doing a fair impression of a sausage trapped inside too small casings.

"No," he decided.

Wylan plucked at the embroidery of his vest. He dug his fingers into the side of his bloated belly and let out a wet belch. Some of the queasiness drained from his face. 

Jesper's heart went out to him, it really did. Eating like a starving buffalo must be such hard work.

"What do you know about guns?" Jesper asked Kuwei.

"Some. Not much," Kuwei admitted. He was fidgety, shifting on Jesper's leg, completely unable to sit still. Jesper's cock found this very interesting. Almost as much as seeing Wylan, out of the corner of his eye, push his pudgy tits together. Tease.

Jesper slid a hand up Kuwei's back. The kid flinched.

"Sorry," Jesper said.

"No!" Kuwei said. "No. It's okay." He looked at Jesper shyly under his lashes. "I like it."

Jesper grinned. "Do you now?" He nodded at his revolvers on the table. "Show me what you know."

"Barrel," Kuwei said, pointing to it. "Cylinder. Front and rear sight. Hammer, trigger, grip. There are springs inside."

"Fair enough." Jesper nodded at the bag sitting next to his revolvers. "Do you know what that is?"

"Gunpowder."

He said it so automatically Jesper was rather impressed. At shows, it was about fifty-fifty whether people thought it was gunpowder or bullets. As if he'd really leave his bullets all akimbo a sack.

"And do you know how gunpowder is made?"

Kuwei gave him a withering look. "I learned how to make black powder when I was five. David Kostyk himself taught me how to make blasting powders."

Jesper had no idea who David Kostyk was. From Kuwei's tone, he was someone important somewhere.

"Good." He let his fingers tap their way up Kuwei's spine, making the kid shiver. "But do you know how the Zemeni do it?"

Kuwei sat up straight. His eyes were zealous-bright and eager as he whirled on Jesper. "You'll teach me to make Zemeni gunpowder?"

A slow, lazy grin he personally knew to be dazzling unfurled across Jesper's face. He would. For that kind of attention, he absolutely would.

 

* * *

 

"Do you-"

"The work shed," Iske said before he could even finish. She didn't even bother to look at him as she picked up her washrag and dropped it in the bucket. She doused it and slopped it back onto the floor, then squinted irritably at his feet. "They've been in there half the afternoon. I brought them lunch. Mister Wylan hasn't asked for anything since." She looked at him pointedly. "I need to clean the floor, Mister Jesper."

"Don't worry, I'm leaving," Jesper said, hands up in defeat.

He went the long way round to avoid stepping on her clean floor. Jesper didn't even want to consider what would happen if he trod on it.

His death, probably.

The door to the work shed was closed, which never boded well. Wylan worked on his most nefarious explosives and chemistry doodads behind closed doors. He needed controlled environments and Ketterdam's dubiously fresh air, even on a sunny day like today, did not figure in that.

Neither of them noticed him come in. For a moment, Jesper leaned on the sliding door and just watched.

"What are you doing?" he finally asked. 

Wylan, who was sitting at the workbench mixing two powders in a dish, barely looked up. An assortment of bowls and jars was arrayed fussily in front of him, the spacing exactly so. Wylan adjusted one of the knots on the green ribbon looped around the neck of a jar. Jesper had seen just this situation a hundred times before. Wylan was working on an experiment.

Kuwei was the one confusing him.

He was drawing pictures on Wylan's menagerie of chemicals and materials. The jars were label-less, of course, which frustrated Jesper to no end the one time he tried to help Wylan, and used a system of knots and ribbons only Wylan understood.

Jesper, if he had to guess, would say Kuwei had gotten similarly annoyed. Unlike Jesper, who had decided to leave Wylan to his experimenting, he had decided to...doodle? Certainly, that was one way to tell the rather volatile liquids and powders apart. How uncharacteristically generous of Wylan to let him.

Brows furrowed, Kuwei applied a strip of tape to a blank jar. With short, deft strokes, he scratched a series of images on the tape before replacing the container and moving on to the next.

"You taught him your system?" Jesper asked. He curled his fingers under Wylan's jaw and rubbed at the pocket of chub there. He watched Kuwei work. The kid wasn't even hesitating.

"No," Wylan replied sourly. He measured out a portion of gray powder and sprinkled it into a sharp, thin-smelling liquid. Jesper could guess its purpose, if not its name. Wylan did favor his fireworks and explosives. "He said the ribbons were too confusing. Evidently, my lack of training in Little Palace methods means my 'blended propellants all feel the same' and if I didn't want him to "blow himself to bits', I'd better let him." Wylan's scowl softened. "He's been running around the last half hour drawing on everything."

"Ah. This is another one of his campaigns, is it?"

Wylan's lips quirked ruefully. "To drive us mad, yes." He stirred the substance in his bowl, then added another portion of powder. "They aren't all bad. Your wardrobe did need organizing."

"We have servants for that. He arranged it by  _item_ , Wy,  _item_."

Wylan eyed Jesper's current outfit. Jesper preened. He was rather proud of it. Plum and salmon flattered his undertone immensely and the tessellated flying fish pattern made for a patriotic conversation starter. "You seem to have found things easily enough."

"Only with considerable effort! Imagine if my sartorial skills weren't so well-honed."

"Yes," Wylan said. "Imagine."

"You know I like it by color," Jesper grumbled. "I had to ask Koen to fix it.  _He_ complained that it was a complete waste of an afternoon."

Wylan's stomach gurgled. He blushed and placed a hand on the crest of his pudgy belly. If his vest were looser and not stretched like a drum skein, he would have rested it in the wrinkle that typically formed under his small breasts. The vest, along with his shirt, had fit this morning. Right now, it was a little more on the obscenely gaping buttons side. Jesper  _had_ suggested earlier he change into something a little more comfortable. Kuwei and Wylan shot him down.

"I'm sure Koen didn't mind that much," Wylan said. He looked up at Jesper hopefully. "Will you bring me a snack? I'm a little hungry." He batted his eyelashes.

Jesper kissed his forehead. "Anything to keep you from wasting away, darling."

"You say that but I hear your eyes rolling," Kuwei muttered from the other side of the room.

"That's because  _you_ are a brat and a half." Jesper stalked over and grabbed him by the waist. Kuwei protested, citing flashpoints and tall Zemeni jerks. Since Jesper didn't immediately blow up, he chalked it up to Kuwei being mouthy again. "Why are you drawing pictures on Wylan's jars?"

"I'm not  _drawing_. I'm writing the scientific names. In Shu." Kuwei's eyes drifted to Wylan. Jesper suppressed a growl. Saints, if the kid could just act like Wylan wasn't the entire point of existence for five  _seconds_. "He said he was hungry. You should get him food."

"Wylan can wait."

Wylan informed them that, as a growing man,  _he could not_.

Jesper flapped a hand in his direction.

"Why?" he asked Kuwei. 

Saints, couldn't he just look at him? Kuwei had a crush on him when they first met. Where had that gone? Jesper was perfectly willing to share Wylan's bed. He just wanted to fully share it rather than this one-sided thing they had going on.

"So I can use the materials, too."

Jesper's brows rose. "I thought you were planning on leaving us soon?"

Kuwei's hand jerked back. A drop of ink beaded at the tip of the pen he held in midair. He stared blankly ahead. Then he seemed to come to his senses. He shook his head slightly, finished scratching out the Shu words, and put the jar back. Without looking at Jesper, he reached for the next one.

"I've changed my mind," he said. He glanced at Jesper from the corner of his eye. "Unless you're asking me to leave?"

"Not at all."

Kuwei let out a breath.

"Did you think I was?" Jesper asked, suddenly grasping some of Kuwei's reluctance. "Because I'm definitely not. I like this." He gestured between them. "This is great."

"Sharing Wylan." Kuwei said it flatly, as if he expected Jesper to have a problem with that.

"I was thinking of it more like expanding my sexual horizons but sure. Sharing Wylan. Saints know there's enough of him now."

Kuwei's gaze turned murderous. "I  _like_ that there's 'enough' of him now."

Jesper spread his hands. "So do I. But you, my little Shu, I want to enjoy, too."

Kuwei's eyes narrowed. "Then prove it."

"Jes," Wylan called. He sounded cranky. Probably low blood sugar. Nina said that was a thing once. "I thought you were getting me a snack."

Jesper tore his gaze from Kuwei. "Going."

 

* * *

 

"Do you think Kuwei likes me?" Jesper asked as they lay in bed one morning. Kuwei had gone- Wylan didn't know where he had gone. He had been venturing out lately, going who knew where to do who knew what. Wylan should really ask the Dregs member he'd hired to shadow him but, well, he'd been busy. The harvest had just ended and taxes were due.

"What?" Wylan replied. "Why would you say that? He thinks you're amazing."

"Uh huh. That's why he won't let me kiss him when you're not looking."

"You're jealous," Wylan teased, walking fingers up Jesper's chest. "You don't like that he likes me better." He tapped Jesper's chin and sat up on one elbow to kiss it. "He's not going to steal me away, Jes."

Jesper squeezed Wylan's knee and swirled his fingers over the light red hair on his leg. Wylan could practically hear Jesper's thoughts, he'd heard them so many times. Jesper could never get over the color of Wylan's hair, all of his hair, or how it contrasted so beautifully with the delicate white of Wylan's skin and the blue of his eyes. "I didn't think he would. But I'm part of this, Wy. Is it so wrong to want a little affection?"

"Is that what you want? A little affection?" Wylan swung a leg over Jesper's waist and settled heavily in his lap. Jesper's hands came up to grip his sides. With a smirk, Wylan covered them with his own. He began to roll his hips. " _I_  can give you that."

A wide smile unfurled across Jesper's perfect lips. "Oh, I'm sure you can."

 

* * *

 

It had been sweet when Jesper came home at noon and they were still in bed, Kuwei reading the paper aloud and Wylan brushing crumbs off the bedspread. It had been frankly adorable when he found them asleep, Kuwei snuggled against Wylan's side.

This was not cute.

"Move over," Jesper said, throwing the words over his shoulder. He was hot and tired and really not in the mood to have half his limbs hanging off the bed. "I'm about to fall off."

Kuwei grumbled. Wylan was more accommodating, which would have been useful if Kuwei would  _move over_. 

Jesper wasn't going to lie: they needed a new bed. With the rate Wylan was growing, it was a gamble which one of them was going to end up falling and when.

They weren't there yet, though, not if Kuwei stayed on one edge and Jesper the other. Which Kuwei was  _not doing_.

"Kuwei," Jesper groaned. He just wanted to sleep.

Kuwei muttered a nasty-sounding string of Shu.

 _Brat._  "What was that?"

"Leave it," Wylan said. "Jes, here." He turned on his side. "Just move closer to me."

Grumbling, Jesper pulled himself back onto the bed. The mattress edge dug into his side, warning him how precarious his position was. He threw an arm over Wylan. It only served to make him hotter. Wylan was an oven.

"I’m buying you a new bed," he told Wylan, their noses all but brushing against each other's. "First thing in the morning."

"If you need more room," Kuwei said in a nasty, little voice, "there's always the floor."

"'There's always the floor'," Jesper retorted in Zemeni. Kuwei wasn't the only one who was bilingual. "Just sleep on the floor in my own fucking house, why don't I."

"I understood that."

Since when did Kuwei speak Zemeni? "Good. Do you understand this?  _Budge over_."

 

* * *

 

"I'm telling you, he doesn't like me," Jesper said as he pulled a shirt over his head. He slipped his arms through the sleeves and tugged it down over his chest. He grabbed for a vest. Although a rather more muted combination than Jesper usually preferred, the tan color paired beautifully with the pink of his shirt.

Wylan sighed, sounding exasperated. "Have you asked him?"

Jesper's fingers paused at his buttons. He looked at Wylan sitting on the bed. "No? Why would I?"

"Communication is important," Wylan reminded him.

 _Communication is important._  How did Wylan expect Jesper to communicate when Kuwei was making it so clear he wanted him gone? He flinched when Jesper touched him. He was short and rude when they talked. He was incredibly gorgeous and wonderfully smart. Jesper gave him every chance and he could barely stop himself saying Jesper didn't belong in his own home. If Wylan was just around when it happened, he would understand. 

"He's the one making nasty comments," Jesper said. He didn't feel up to explaining it all over again.

"If you aren't willing to talk to him, I could do it for you."

Jesper bent over to kiss Wylan's cheek. "Please. I need to get to work. When you talk to him, remind him who was here first. It was me, in case you'd forgotten."

Wylan stretched his arms over his head, causing his nightshirt to ride up across the center of his deep hollow of a navel. He yawned languidly and scratched at his exposed belly. He looked comfortable, sleepy, soft and overfed. His breasts were puffy through his shirt. The bare bottom swell of his belly was jiggly and riddled with fading stretchmarks. Altogether, the perfect excuse for taking the day off and passing it between the sheets. "I hadn't and I won't. You're being childish, Jesper."

Jesper reached out and grasped the plump lower curve of Wylan's belly, hooking his thumb in his bellybutton where it fit perfectly. He squeezed, subtly weighing Wylan's bulk in his hand. His belly was starting to get heavy. Jesper knelt to kiss it.

He met Wylan's questioning eyes. It wasn't doubt he saw there but a gentle curiosity. Did Jesper like this as much as Wylan did?

"You know I think you're gorgeous, darling," Jesper drawled, shifting his fingers to press into a bruise Kuwei had sucked into the skin. Absolutely spoiled, their merch was. "But you are truly becoming a work of art."

Wylan flushed and squirmed.

"And heavy," Jesper added as Wylan's weight shifted. He stood up, poking the center of Wylan's tummy. "This is much too soft. I'll get the cook to send something for you to fill it with while I'm gone."

Cheeks still a lovely shade of pink, Wylan pushed his belly into Jesper's hand.

"Scoundrel. You know I can't say no to that." 

Jesper kissed his cheek and gave him a parting squeeze. He really did have to get to work. It was show day. His fans would be distraught if he weren't there to give them a glimpse of what they couldn't have. 

"I'll talk to Kuwei," Wylan said. "But you shouldn't be so hard on him. After all,  _you_ were the one who brought him into our bed."

 

* * *

 

"Jesper's eyes are starting to turn green because of you."

Half-asleep, snuggled against Wylan's side in the velvet desk chair, Kuwei made a wordless, questioning noise.

"I know, it's silly." Wylan ran fingers through Kuwei's hair. It was coarse and shock straight, completely different from Jesper's short-cropped, wiry curls. "But you do like me better, don't you?" Ghezen but he could feel Kuwei's heart pounding. "You don't have to say anything. I know you do."

"I like you." Kuwei sat up, anxiousness all across his face. "I like him," he insisted. "I- you will be jealous."

"Me?"

"You said you would push me in a canal."

"That was a long time ago." Wylan pushed his tummy out. Kuwei leapt to touch it, hands sinking into soft fat and beginning to knead. Wylan sighed appreciatively. "Clearly, my feelings have changed."

Kuwei wasn't meeting his eyes. "He is yours."

"Kuwei, I agreed to this. I don't want either of you to be unhappy." Wylan sucked in a breath. Kuwei had hit a sore spot. He soothed it out with a soft clucking sound.

"I'm not unhappy.”

"The only way that would be true is if you  _don't_ like Jesper."

"I do!" Kuwei's sun-gold eyes were earnest.

"Do you really?"

"Yes!"

"But you won't kiss him. Keep going," Wylan said. Kuwei had stopped his kneading. He hurried to resume it. Ghezen, was there anything better? Even sex wasn't as good as hands on his increasingly fat belly, fingers digging into his spreading flesh, reminding him with every touch just how big he was getting. "He says you barely talk to him when I'm not around."

"I don't want you to be jealous," Kuwei said, repeating himself. He sounded hesitant, afraid, nothing like the man Wylan had come to know. Quieter, he added, "I don't want to take him from you."

"You won't," Wylan replied. He knew he could be possessive but he thought Kuwei understood that didn't count here. "Jesper is loyal to me. But-  _but_ ," he said before Kuwei could stop him, "he's the one who suggested this. You won't take him from me and I won't be jealous if he comes to care for you as much as I do."

The apprehension bled from Kuwei's sunlit eyes. Years ago, for a few days, Wylan had borne those eyes. He had forgotten their beauty until Kuwei's return.

"You care for me?" Kuwei asked.

The doorknob turned. Kuwei hid himself in Wylan's side.

With a soft creak, the office door opened. It was Jesper, returned from a job. He placed his lamp down on the table and stripped off his coat. Humming gently to himself, he unslung his gunbelt and, acting for all the world like he was the only one in the room, stuck his thumbs under his suspenders and let them drop to his waist. Only the quirk of his lips belied how keenly aware he was of the eyes on him.

For no reason at all, he began undoing the buttons of his shirt. It joined its fellows on the table.

Jesper kept going.

The candlelight played off of each revealed stretch of brown skin. Jesper's slim arms and toned legs were revealed, an achingly slow strip show. Jesper was a handsome man and he knew his audience. He was a peacock with his bright clothes, flashy patterns, and pride in every inch of his strut. But strip that all away, take off the clothes and the patterns, even the guns that were so much a part of him, and he was still handsome, gorgeous even. The confidence he had found shone out of him true and strong. He was, in a word, breathtaking.

"Come here," Wylan said, unable to help his growing smile. "Kuwei has something to show you."

Jesper cocked a brow. "Does he now?"

Kuwei looked at Wylan with wide, apprehensive eyes.

Jesper frowned, his act slipping. "What's wrong?"

"Go ahead," Wylan urged Kuwei. "Kiss him. I want you to."

Kuwei did not hesitate. He leapt from the chair and grasped Jesper's face in his hands. With a noise of surprise, Jesper leaned into the kiss.

"Kuwei," Wylan said, rising from the chair slowly, "was confused by a few things. He seemed to think he wasn't allowed to be with you alone."

Jesper's eyes fluttered open in surprise.

"He had his reasons," Wylan assured him. Walking around and behind him, he ran a hand up Jesper's back and over his firm shoulder. "I have been...possessive in the past. But I'm not about this." He pressed a kiss to Jesper's shoulder, then his neck. "I'm going to turn in for the night. You two are welcome to join me after you've worked this misunderstanding out between yourselves."

The relief and bright, blinding happiness in Kuwei's eyes warmed Wylan all the way up the stairs.

 

* * *

 

They were going to be late for the theater if they didn't get a move on. It wasn't often Jesper got to wine and dine his boys and this was going to be Kuwei's first performance. Jesper had planned an entire night and all of a sudden, Wylan cared about clothes.

He loped up the stairs, determined to figure out the source of the hold up. If they were kissing again, Jesper was going to smack them with the butts of his revolvers. They had plans, damnit.

They were not kissing.

"What's this?" Jesper asked as he lifted a vest from the pile on the floor.

"They don't fit" was Wylan's annoyed response.

Well, that was obvious. Nothing did. Wylan had had the tailor in here yesterday measuring him for a new wardrobe. Even his trousers had to be replaced. They still fit around the waist but the inner thighs kept going threadbare.

"He can't button them," Kuwei clarified. Looking a picture in emerald and silver, he had two sides of a vest in his hands and was trying valiantly to make them meet over Wylan's nonexistent waist. An inch kept them separate. With each tug, more of Wylan's round, doughy belly pushed through the gaps between his shirt buttons.

"Give that here," Jesper said with a sigh. He gave an experimental tug on the flaps, then rubbed the embroidery between his fingers. "Well, no wonder. You haven't worn this in ages." He pulled the vest off Wylan's shoulders. Wylan pouted. His protruding bottom lip and the sad cast to his face were entirely artificial and yet, Jesper was sold. Wylan was just too cute.

Still, if they were going out, they needed to look good.

Wylan had chests full of clothes. There had to be at least one vest that would still cover him.

Jesper pointed at the charcoal gray vest hanging in the wardrobe. It had fit a few days ago. "Give me that one."

Kuwei passed it to him.

The good news was the flaps met. The bad was that they needed more than that.

"Suck it in, darling," Jesper told Wylan as he tried to tug one flap over the other. Nothing happened. "A little more."

Wylan whined. "I can't."

"You can and, if you want to go out, you will." Jesper pushed against Wylan's belly. It wasn't even firm. Wylan simply wasn't trying. "There's muscles in there somewhere, lovely, I just need you to use them."

Wylan nodded and, with considerable effort, sucked his belly in a few inches. Jesper yanked the two sides of the vest closed and nodded at Kuwei to do the buttons up.

Wylan let go of his breath with a great  _whoosh_. His belly flooded back, filling the vest like wine in a 'skin.

The seams creaked. The buttons cried for mercy. Offering a silent apology, Jesper added a touch of Fabrikator strength to the threads holding them in place. Chubby, spoiled, little merchlings couldn't go to the theater naked no matter how much their lovers might enjoy it.

The vest was already creeping up over Wylan's flabby sides. Jesper tugged it down. It immediately began to creep back up.

"That'll do," he told Wylan. "Just don't eat too many plates and we'll be able to keep you in that for a couple hours."

As if on cue, Wylan's stomach growled. His pout deepened.

Jesper rang the servant's bell.

"Iske," he said when she appeared, fishing in his pocket for some _kruge_ notes and handing them to the woman. "Give this to the tailor and tell him there's more where that came from if he has an outfit ready by the morning. If tonight is going the way I suspect it will, his client won't have anything to wear tomorrow."

"Now, gentlemen," he said, slinging an arm around them both and rubbing the bridge of his nose behind Kuwei's ear, earning himself a lovely, little gasp, "can we  _please_ go have some fun?"

 

* * *

 

"Did he fall asleep already?" Jesper whispered.

Wylan laughed softly, ruffling Kuwei's hair. "It was a long play." He smiled indulgently down at the Shu nestled into his side. "He's cute, isn't he?"

"He's adorable," Jesper agreed. "We should keep him."

Wylan swatted him.

"You're adorable, too," Jesper said. He really was. All pink and plumped up, his cheeks actually starting to round out. He looked- what was the word? Cherubic. Jesper kissed one. Wylan hummed happily. Jesper squeezed one of his chubby tits. In a few months, they might actually be handfuls. He circled the outline of a nipple with his finger.

Wylan bit his lip and glanced down at Kuwei.

"Right, right. Don't wake the baby." Jesper's hand moved downwards. Wylan worried his lip.

"We'll be quiet," Jesper said.

"You," Wylan gasped as Jesper pinched the thick roll under his chest. "Quiet."

"Mmm," Jesper kissed him. "I can be quiet." With one quick move, he pulled Wylan on top of him. Wylan's legs spread instinctively, his belly spilling out between them and pressing against the length of Jesper's cock. A lovely flush darkened his cheeks and spread down his chest. "Question is: can you?"


	9. Chapter 9

Kuwei sorted through Wylan's mail, putting it into piles of important and unimportant, urgent and absolutely trivial. He did this every morning. A Councilman received dozens of messages a week. If they were allowed to pile up, a serious matter might be pushed behind something like a letter asking Wylan to be a character witness at his father's next release hearing.

This was what Kuwei told the servants whenever they caught him checking. It was true, to an extent.

Three letters went into unimportant, one into urgent. One he debated throwing away completely before tossing it in with the rest of the trivial. So many letters, so few worth reading.

He paused as he came across one particular envelope. It was worn at the edges and smudged with grease or oil. This letter had come a long way.

Across a sea, to be exact.

Wylan's name was on the address line, though he wasn't the ultimate recipient. That was Kuwei. Wylan was only meant to open the letter. He wasn't expected to understand the words inside, simply recognize the script and reconsider a protection he was assumed to afford.

Kuwei grabbed a pen knife and slit the envelope open.

The words were in flowery, roundabout Ravkan but the message was as clear as the first time: the Little Palace knew where he was. They had been indulgent. Now they wanted him back.

Too bad the Ravkan government cut a deal with a Barrel rat and only one member of the Merchant Council was at all interested in what the impoverished country had to say. The same member in whose house Kuwei currently resided.

He crumpled the letter in his fist. When he opened it, there was only ash.

He tipped it onto the floor. Black-grey flakes fluttered through the air, settling in an acrid constellation no one could ever hope to read. Kuwei stared at it for a moment. Then he wiped his hand on his pants and resumed sorting.


	10. Chapter 10

"Do you think I should get a job?" Kuwei asked. He handed Wylan a bag of licorice and a cup of coffee before settling next to him on the bench. Kuwei hadn't gotten any snacks for himself. He wasn't hungry and he was too jittery for coffee.

A Zemeni gun show. A Zemeni gun show. Kuwei had seen Jesper use his revolvers, of course he had but a  _real_ , Zemeni-style gun show. No one knew guns like the Zemeni. They were masters of their craft and highly secretive about it.

Kuwei was so excited.

Jesper had been hinting for weeks that he should go. Wylan despised Jesper's fans, which was the only reason he hadn't suggested it sooner. According to him, they were all idiots who wanted to moon over Jesper far more than they wanted to see trick shots.

There was a pack of them near the front, young women and a few men holding flags decorated with two brown hands holding crossed pistols. Kuwei had been wondering why Wylan was scowling at them until he saw the Jesper face pins. Clearly, there were a few artists in the group.

"I don't see why," Wylan replied. He was picking through the bag in search of just the right piece. "Unless you're bored."

Kuwei didn't really have a response to that. He wasn't bored right now. But he felt a little useless and a lot unproductive. Jesper had two jobs. Wylan had an empire. Kuwei either helped him run it or talked at the servants while  _they_ were working and that was just unfair to everybody.

"Never mind."

Wylan grunted and chewed his licorice contentedly. It was no concern of his whether Kuwei got a job.

Kuwei glanced at him from the corner of his eye. Wylan wore the standard black mercher suit. It kissed his frame, doing nothing to hide his bulk but fitting far better than his usual "technically". Wylan’s wardrobe consisted almost entirely of outfits he had no business squeezing himself into and the mercher suits he wore outside the house. The suits, though cut well, did nothing to conceal his bulk. He'd need a  _kefta_ for that. A generous one.

Maybe not even that. Wylan’s belly, long since become his most prominent feature, jutted in front of him when he walked and swelled far into his lap when he sat. Those thighs were taking up plenty of their own room, too. They spread wide over the bench and crowded Kuwei. He did his best to stay a reasonable distance from the person next to him. The man, a sailor by the looks of his clothes, shot him a dirty look before noticing the ruby pin on Wylan's suit. Then he blanched.

Kuwei kind of wished he hadn't seen it. It would have given him so much satisfaction to glare the man down. He did anyway, casually, turning his head just enough to have plausible deniability. It wasn't long before the sailor moved to another bench.

A whistling shriek tore through the air, catching the crowd's attention. Two bright trails of light rocketed into the sky. With a thundering boom, the fireworks burst into a chrysanthemum and fell in a dazzling, jellyfish pattern. The crowd cheered.

Kuwei's chest buzzed with a restless agitation. He dug his fingers into his trouser legs and tried not to squirm.

"Don’t get too excited," Wylan said, touching his arm. "That's just the build-up." He smirked. "Jesper likes to make his audience wait."

 

* * *

 

Anyone who knew Jesper knew his pistols were an extension of him. They were always on his hips, two pearl handles his hands gravitated towards naturally. He didn't exude a natural sense of danger, just an easy confidence, an underestimate me at your own peril.

But that was when he wasn't shooting. Kuwei knew Jesper could draw his guns as easy as drawing air. He had seen him fight, seen incredible trick shots, and been at the mercy of a bullet that only a Zemeni Fabrikator could have kept from murdering him.

That was what Jesper could do in the moment. It wasn't all he was capable of.

The Zemeni take on the Small Science wasn't well-known outside their borders and, even knowing he was using his powers, Kuwei couldn't tell what was and wasn't Grisha-helped.

From a hundred paces, Jesper’s bullets tore through a dot the size of a coin. Spectators through clay disks into the air, one after the other, and Jesper shot each one. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed fake gold coins high, high into the air, pulled his guns from his hips, and took aim. He leaned over backwards and pierced a bottle right through the neck.

As an Inferni, Kuwei felt every shot, every moment of incendiary explosion. He felt the air move around the bullet, that blistering heat he could reach out and mold into flame.

People thought Inferni are only good for one thing on the battlefield. What they didn't realize was Inferni didn't control fire. They controlled the gases that fire depended on to stay lit. Kuwei couldn't start a fire but he could redirect hot air into dry material just like he could stop a bullet by sucking away the oxygen around it. The Ravkans trained the Inferni to do it, just like they trained them to superheat air and cause human bodies to spontaneously combust. Not easy, not pretty, but doable.

But this. This was a Fabrikator using his own weapons. Fabrikators were creators. They made guns, bullets, glass. They outfitted the Second Army. In Fjerda, they made reinforced glass and armor.

In Ketterdam by way of Novyi Zem, they danced.

 

* * *

 

Jesper fired a shot. It cracked through the air, the sound so loud its absence was deafening.

He crossed his smoking guns over his chest and, with a wink to the crowd, blew on the smoking barrel. He panted. He grinned, darting his tongue out to wet dry lips, his eyes Grisha bright.

Intoxicated, it took Kuwei a second to realize what had happened. He felt bereft. It was over?

“They’ll clear out in a minute,” Wylan said. He slurped the last of his coffee. “Then we’ll go see him.”

It felt like forever until the last of the fans left. Jesper wasn’t kidding about having a fanclub. They buzzed around him, asking questions and chattering for what felt like ages.

Finally, Wylan tugged on Kuwei's arm.

Jesper was talking to a spectator, a pale Kerch with brown, curly hair. He was still affecting a slight Zemeni accent, what Kuwei was now considering his show voice. There was a whole attitude to go with it and a backstory. Something something about being heir to a massive fortune in Weddle, of all places.

Wylan moved to stand next to Jesper. He leaned into him. The move confused Kuwei until he saw the spectator’s arm stretched out for a handshake. Jesper didn’t seem to notice. He slipped an arm around Wylan’s waist and turned to Kuwei.

“Did you enjoy the show?” he asked.

Disappointed, the spectator walked away. Triumph spread over Wylan’s face.

Kuwei tried to get his tongue to work. It decided to save him the indignity of saying  _let me get on my knees for you, you beautiful man_  by forcing a few incomprehensible noises from his throat.

Jesper coughed to cover his laugh. “That good, huh?”

"Have you eaten yet?" he asked Wylan.

It was a ridiculous question. Wylan had already had breakfast (four slices of bread with  _appelstroop_  and sliced strawberries with powdered sugar) and lunch (three  _uitsmijter_  with plenty of cheese) with both a mid-morning (a whole loaf of  _suikerbrood_  smeared with butter), an afternoon snack (two plates of whiting), as well as the licorice and coffee. The question was, did Wylan have room in that vast belly of his, which Wylan categorically did.

"He had some fried whiting a half hour ago," Kuwei said, regaining his speaking abilities in time to defend himself.  _He_  would never let Wylan starve. They’d bought  _kibbeling_  for Jesper, too, but Wylan had eaten it. Kuwei had mostly picked the breading off of his and flicked it at the gulls.

"How much?"

"Two plates."

Jesper looked from Wylan's stomach to Kuwei's face and back.

“Two plates,” he said. “What an extravagant snack.” Jesper patted Wylan's tummy. It jiggled traitorously. “Don't worry, sweetheart. We'll get you fed.”

Wylan cocked an eyebrow. “Are you talking to my stomach?”

“I'm just giving it the respect it deserves as a member of this family.”

Kuwei patted Wylan’s tummy, too. Very jiggly. Not even really hard at the top. Kuwei might need to revise what was enough to fill it now. He leaned down to give it a quick peck. “Part of the family.”

Wylan rolled his eyes but the two spots of color on his cheeks said he was secretly pleased.

Jesper pulled him in for a kiss. Kuwei loved watching them kiss. Jesper always took control and Wylan melted so easily in his arms. "I thought you only had whiting? You taste like licorice."

"I had a bag," admitted Wylan.

"Only one?"

"Yes, Jesper, only one. There's plenty of room in here for more."

"There always is," Kuwei said.

Wylan smirked. "That, too."

 

They picked the first restaurant they could find with private booths. The Blue Room was an upscale place, the type frequented less by merchers than their adult children who had yet to embrace a devout lifestyle. Jesper liked it because it was extravagant. Wylan liked it because the portions were big.

Kuwei didn’t like it for anything because he’d never been there before.

He didn’t even have to do any encouraging. Wylan descended on the food like a man possessed. He reached for plate after plate of roast beef and chicken and mashed potatoes, eating so much he had to brace a hand against the bottom swell of his stomach just to get to his feet. Jesper and Kuwei had to help him into the carriage. He was almost too stuffed to stand, let alone walk.

Once the door was closed, Kuwei peeled Wylan out of his coat and made quick work of his waistcoat buttons. Wylan was practically panting from the effort of breathing around a packed stomach. His forehead beaded with sweat. His undershirt strained to cover him, diamonds of flesh peeking out from between the buttons. Kuwei’s fingers stung from bringing the cloth together enough to slide the buttons through the holes. It would be so much easier just to rip the fine clothes. Each successful attempt only increased the pressure on the next buttonhole. Kuwei fumbled and cursed softly. Wylan was helpless, pinned under the weight of his own gluttony.

Finally, Kuwei managed it. The last bit of fabric slid free and, with a grateful moan from Wylan, his belly burst free of its confines, spilling into his lap. Small red circles, the echo of buttons, were stamped down the center. The top bulged outward in a tight drum. Kuwei clucked his tongue and began rubbing the worst of the tightness away.

"Saints, Wy, look at you. We can’t even call you chubby anymore," Jesper said. “You’re just plain fat. Just a spoiled merch too fat to even undress himself.”

Wylan, face still flushed and sweating, breath shallow, raised an eyebrow. He moved Kuwei's hands higher up his belly.

“Never mind that you ate so much you _need_ to undress yourself.” Jesper leaned forward and jabbed a finger into Wylan’s belly. Wylan hiccupped. “Did you even see the way the other people at the restaurant were looking at you? Do you think they considered themselves lucky because they got to see Wylan Van Eck, the fattest merch in the city, stuff his fat face? Or do you think they said, look at this big.” Jesper jabbed in the same spot. “Fat.” Again. “Pig?”

Wylan’s chest heaved. His lips were slightly parted, pink tongue visible. His eyes were a wide, dark blue.

Jesper broke first. He grabbed Wylan by the jaw and mashed their lips together, making a noise as desperate as Wylan’s own. Legs spread, he stood over Wylan, pushing him back into the carriage seat. Wylan gripped his shirt hard, all but devouring Jesper in his eagerness. His neck stretched upwards, his Adam’s apple sharp and defined.

The carriage jerked forward. Jesper used the movement to shove Wylan further back. His pelvis pressed against Wylan's belly, rocking into it in a rhythm altogether separate from the carriage's swaying.

Kuwei pressed his lips together to hide his mirth. Jesper kept saying he liked Wylan for Wylan, not his curves. What a love story. So beautiful. Kuwei would fall down in awe if Jesper ever actually managed to finish teasing Wylan about how monstrously fat he was getting _before_ humping him.

The carriage went over a bump. Kuwei grabbed the door handle as they popped up and gripped it tightly as they dropped back down. Wylan sucked in a pained breath. Jesper leaned his forehead against Wylan's, tangling a brown hand in ruddy curls.

“How’d you like that?” he murmured. Kuwei had to strain to hear.

“I loved it,” Wylan said.

“Good. Because I meant every word. You’re getting more gorgeous by the hour.” Jesper gave him a quick peck on the lips. He threw himself onto the other seat. Sprawled across it, he looked as satisfied as a cat licking cream off its paw.

Kuwei’s eyes flew open. He’d completely forgotten. He fished the rolls he’d saved out of his pocket.

Seeing this, Wylan wrinkled his nose.

"What?" Kuwei asked, unwrapping the napkin. It was clean. "There's only eight of them."

"Yeah, Wy," Jesper drawled. "There's only eight."

Wylan groaned. "You'll have to feed me. This," he said, cradling his swollen belly, "still needs attention."

Kuwei found that trade-off more than fair.

Wylan inhaled the first three rolls. The fourth went down slower and the fifth was a struggle.

Kuwei frowned. Wylan needed to stop underestimating himself. He kept thinking, just because his stomach hurt, it couldn't take any more. Not true. His stomach hurt because he was stretching it. If he didn’t stretch it, he’d never be able to fit more in. Kuwei was very careful not to push Wylan's actual limits but so far, given a belly rub and some time to doze, there weren’t any.

He did tear the rolls apart before feeding them to Wylan. He didn’t want him to choke.

Wylan chewed slowly and swallowed slower. He was playing the victim and Kuwei didn’t believe him for a second. He ran a hand over the broad expanse of Wylan's belly. It was unbelievably thick, the top high and hard, the bottom soft and malleable. Definitely full.

Kuwei lifted his stomach, admiring its warmth and heft. What Kuwei wouldn’t give to be crushed underneath it.

He let it go, watching it bounce back onto Wylan’s thighs. It quivered madly, ripples spreading out to the fat that rolled over his trousers. He flicked the flabby underside, grinning when it also jiggled. Wylan's hips jerked slightly. Sensitive. And so soft. That underbelly was incredibly tempting. It begged Kuwei to bite it.

He did, lightly.

Wylan smacked him.

"Ow," Kuwei whined.

"Serves you right."

Kuwei scowled. He rubbed his lips over the bite apologetically. He hadn't meant it to hurt.

"It's fine," Wylan huffed. He leaned back with a wince and kneaded the skin under his rib cage. Jesper leaned back. His legs were spread wide. He tapped his fingers against his inner leg, eyes glued on Wylan and his pink cheeks.

Kuwei shoved a whole roll into Wylan's mouth. He could take it.

Wylan made a muffled “ummf!” sound. Kuwei batted his eyelashes.

“More?” he asked.

Wylan sighed. Chewing determinedly, he forced down most of the seventh roll. Kuwei continued to feed him small pieces. They were definitely slowing their roll.

Kuwei squeezed the skin at the top of Wylan's belly. It _was_ tight. Maybe Kuwei wouldn't make Wylan eat the last roll.

After a moment’s consideration, he ruled that a hard no. He tore the roll in half. Wylan eyed it, his jaw moving slowly.

"He's going to choke," Jesper admonished.

What did Jesper know? Kuwei shoved the half in. Greedy, Wylan barely chewed. He chucked Kuwei’s smiling chin and, throat bobbing, swallowed.

"Is that it?" he asked with a heavy exhale. His hand rested on the dome of his belly, too tired to even rub up and down.

"Only the other half." Kuwei patted his pockets, searching. “Ah ha!” Triumphantly, he pulled out the bag of licorice Wylan hadn’t finished during the show. There was about a third left.

Wylan’s eyes gleamed. He was so _greedy_.

Jesper shook his head, amused. "Give it to him. Can't you see he's starving?"

"No one's ever fed him," Kuwei agreed. He leaned in close and to Wylan said conspiratorially, "When we get home, I'll get cook to make up some pudding for you." He squeezed one of the soft rolls along the merch’s side. "I'll chop it up really well so I can spoon it to you. You won't even have to chew, just swallow."

Wylan's agreeable groan turned into a hiccup.

"You're going to make him fat," Jesper chided.

Kuwei matched the sharpshooter’s smirk with one of his own. "That would be awful, wouldn't it?"

 

* * *

 

Wylan wasn’t so greedy he could do the impossible.

He only managed a single bowl, barely finishing that before dozing off. Kueei pushed his sweaty curls back from his face. Wylan made a marvelous picture with his hands clasped over his belly and his chin on his chest. The tiny pocket of fat under his chin pushed out in a cushion. Kuwei wanted to curl up next to him and sleep forever.

He stacked the full bowl on top of the empty one and brought them both over to the table. Wylan could finish when he woke up. He was always hungry after a nap.

"You take such good care of him," Jesper said. His fingers ghosted up Kuwei's sides. Kuwei leaned back against him.

"He deserves it."

"I agree." Jesper kissed the sensitive spot behind Kuwei's ear, making him shiver. He couldn’t get over the contrast between Wylan and Jesper, soft fat against hard planes. Going from one to the other was like going from _kvas_ to lager. Two different intoxicants, both with the same effect. "But you need taking care of, too. Let me."

He pulled Kuwei's shirt over his head and turned him to face him. He was bare-chested already, miles of dark brown skin and lean muscles. His eyes were the color of Squaller weather, overcast with a storm on the horizon.

"We could wait." Kuwei spread his hands on Jesper's firm chest. Saints, he was warm. Kuwei had the sudden urge to curl his hands and drag his nails downwards. "He'll wake up soon."

"Let him sleep. He's got a lot of digesting to do. I, on the other hand," his eyes raked Kuwei up and down, "am  _ravenous_. **"**

"You," Kuwei retorted, "are _lame_."

Jesper grabbed his waist and yanked their hips together. All the breath shot out of Kuwei’s lungs.

"I don't feel like waiting." Jesper tilted his head to the side. "Come on, Shuling, let me show you a good time. You saw my show. Why don’t I give you one of your own?"

Kuwei was torn between wanting to compliment Jesper on the sudden improvement of his pickup lines and letting Jesper pull him into the guest bedroom and put his money where his mouth was.

Jesper chuckled. The low, dark sound filled Kuwei's chest and belly. Suddenly, all he wanted to do was kiss Jesper.

So he did.

 

* * *

 

"It's like they're eating the fabric," Kuwei whispered. His eyes were glued on the tiny slivers of fabric bunched between Wylan's thighs.

Sitting on the bed next to him, Jesper swallowed. He grabbed a pillow and shoved it in his lap. It would have been smarter to grab Kuwei. At least then he wouldn't be the pervert trying not to grind into a pillow.

Wylan wasn’t paying them any attention. He walked from his wardrobe to the full-length mirror. He held up a shirt that hadn't a hope of covering him, then tossed it onto the growing pile on the chair and went back for another.

Clothed, watching Wylan walk was a delight.

 _This_ was something out of a bordello. Wylan's thighs were a dream. They jiggled every time his foot touched the floor. His ass, barely covered by two winking stretches of cotton, swayed. He bent over to retrieve a shirt from the bottom drawer, oblivious to how the fabric rode even higher up his sinful rear. Kuwei made a strangled noise.

Sometime in the last few weeks, Wylan's gut decided it didn't need to bear all of his extra weight and let his legs take over. The softness that had been creeping over Wylan’s thighs suddenly ballooned, turning them _thick_ , plush and pillowy, and completely, utterly incapable of staying separate.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Wylan hadn’t stopped buying new clothes. His shirts fit well enough, he reasoned, and his waistcoats. Those were what had been giving him trouble; what else was there? He _liked_ when his clothes dug into his hips.

Jesper had given up betting. If he were still a betting man, though, an he’d placed a bet on whether he or Kuwei was going to lose his mind first, the odds would not be looking good for himself. In fact, they would be looking terrible.

"Wy," said Jesper. His voice mostly veiled his lack of composure. "Do you think you could maybe get dressed a little faster?"

Wylan looked over his shoulder. He batted innocent eyes. Standing up straight, one hip cocked to the side, he ran a hand down all the plump, overfed inches of his side. He pulled on the waistband of his briefs and let go. It snapped back into a place. Kuwei let out a quiet moan and shoved his head in his hands. "Why?"

"Because, darling, lovely as you are, Kuwei's getting a little too excited."

"Just Kuwei?" Wylan asked, his eyes flicking to Jesper's lap knowingly. "What's that?"

"It's a pillow," Jesper replied effortlessly.

"Move it."

"Merchling," Jesper admonished. "We both know you can't fit in my lap."

"Move the pillow, Jes."

Jesper leaned back on his hands. "Why don't you move it for me?"

Kuwei moaned softly.

Jesper would like to say he kept his eyes on Wylan's face when he moved to grab the pillow. The truth was he watched those pretty, bulging thighs jiggle as Wylan's rounded hips shook. His belly had been defying gravity for a while, a fat, distended curve pushing over his waistband. It was about time the rest of him caught up. Jesper had watched his boyfriend pig out for months and it was no surprise that his thighs were turning into tree trunks and his ass was suddenly worth speaking of. His love handles had rounded out into a thick roll on top of fat hips and Saints if his arms weren't getting chubby, too.

Jesper was impartial to all this, of course. His attraction to Wylan had never been based on his size.

He just really, really liked this new look. The confidence that went with it, too

He let Wylan rip the pillow away. But he wasn't going to let it stay there. Wylan really couldn't fit on his lap. He stood, sliding his hands up Wylan's back along the rolls forming under his shoulder blades. He squeezed. Wylan gasped, open-mouthed.

"I want you," Jesper murmured, kissing the corner of his mouth.

Wylan swatted him and grumbled. "You always want me."

"Very true." Jesper flashed him his patent dazzling grin. "Would you rather I didn't?"

"Of course not. Jes!"

"What?" Jesper asked innocently. He hadn't pinched Wylan's ass. No way. He would love to, of course. It was deliciously round and just asking for a squeeze.

Jesper was so in love with the merchling. He thought the best he'd ever get was not caring about his Wylan’s curves and rolls, that only Kuwei would greet each found with keen interest, but, Saints, Wylan looked so _good_. He felt amazing. Every time he expressed his fears about crushing one of them, Jesper wanted to lay down on the bed and tell Wylan to sit on his face until his vision turned black. Who cared about breathing when their beautiful baby liked himself?

They were still working at it but Wylan was really coming into his own. Much as Jesper liked to tease him, he wasn't huge. Just...thick. Big. Dressed, you might even call him imposing.

People were starting to respect him. Ghezen might frown on gluttony but the weight made Wylan big and big got noticed in Ketterdam. Jesper had sat in (stood actually, behind the merchling and tapped his fingertips on his pistols in a way that made the other merchers'  _stadwatch_ guards nervous) on enough meetings to see the deference people were starting to give Wylan.

Wylan had been asked to sit on the Merchant Council. It had taken three years for the other merchers to approach him. After the fiasco with his father, they were leery of letting a Van Eck back in. In that time, Ghezen smiled on Wylan. His holdings grew, his foreign connections strengthened. His faults were written on his sleeve: a gang member turned guard he'd invited into his bed, a keen understanding of the Barrel, a softening waistline.

Over the last year, Wylan's position had only strengthened. The Merchant Council had been thorough. They'd looked into Wylan's affairs. They hadn't let him direct any ventures or introduce any deals. He hadn't let them down. He hadn't played with city  _kruge_ nor had he colluded with foreign powers. He provided for his stepmother and half-brother. Even his servants spoke well of him. He had, after all, kept them gainfully employed and at fair pay.

There had been a flurry of rumors when Wylan's belly first started showing. Those had died down after he kept gaining. The Kerch, even, especially the devout, knew its people had flaws. They preferred them to be shared openly.

There was one persistent rumor. According to some, Wylan Van Eck was building himself a stable of studs. First the Zemeni, then the Shu who barely left his estate. Some even said he had relations with Dirtyhands, the remnant of a torrid affair stemming from their childhood, when his father had organized his kidnapping. That rumor, delightful as it was, was completely eclipsed when, during a very eventful trade negotiation, Councilman Van Meerwijk was found to have secretly married not one, not two, but five Suli princes over a period of two years to obtain rock bottom bead prices. That they were male wasn't the problem- Van Meerwijk had a wife and heirs and the Kerch, while generally disdaining it, didn't actually have any laws against polygamy. Marrying a gaggle of foreign princes, not ideal but allowable. Doing so to corner the Suli bead market and mastermind a major trade negotiation between the Merchant Council and his undisclosed husbands, less so.

The Councilman had been stupid backwards and forwards. His bridegrooms came from three different caravans, all of whom were in direct competition and, perhaps more importantly, all despised each other. The secret had come out when the scions, unaided by their brothers, had gotten into a brawl ("it wasn't a brawl. Brawls involve fists. This was a catfight," Anika had said, "that the Menagerie would wince at.") during a city trade meeting.

Van Meerwijk had been smart enough to transfer his holdings to his wife before his stint in jail. Last Jesper heard, the princes, despite two being down an eye apiece, were being well cared for. There was even talk one of the younger ones was seeking an annulment so he could court Van Meerwijk's daughter.

Councilman Van Eck's "stallions", sadly, could not compete with that kind of magnificence in the public imagination.

Wylan shoved Jesper back onto the bed. He swung a bountiful thigh over Jesper’s waist and sank down, his heavy belly pressing on Jesper's dick. Leaning back on one elbow, Jesper wrapped an arm around Wylan’s neck and brought their lips together. The merchling hummed, pleased with himself and his creative definition of “fit” and “lap”.

A warm hand slid up Jesper's arm. Kuwei. Jesper turned his head and they shared a sloppy, three-way kiss.

To Jesper's surprise, Kuwei pursued him after the kiss ended. He gripped Jesper's arm hard and shoved his tongue into his mouth. He made soft, urgent noises in the back of his throat that Jesper instantly adored.

Wylan rocked in his lap. His belly dragged against Jesper's dick, creating a mounting friction. The lower curve of Wylan's belly was buttery soft and slightly ridged with the indents of old stretchmarks. Every roll of Wylan's hips brushed it against Jesper's flat stomach and pushed and pulled it against the tent in his trousers. His legs were going a little numb but it was worth it.

It was so worth it.

 

Later, as they lay in a tangle of post-coital bliss, Wylan and Kuwei dozing lightly, the bells rang. In that quiet room, they were inescapably loud.

_Bong._

_Bong._

_Bong_.

They rang ten times before pausing and ringing ten times again. Loud, deep, reverberating sounds, Jesper was used to ignoring them and wouldn’t have noticed them at all if he didn’t have two slumbering bodies next to him.

Kuwei stirred.

He swore loudly and threw himself off the bed. He shoved his legs into a pair of trousers. Grabbing one of Jesper's shirts, he threw that on as well, doing up the buttons with an unusual fervor. "I gotta go."

"What? Where- he's already gone," Jesper observed.

Wylan, woken by Kuwei's antics, rolled over. His belly swayed with the movement. Jesper reached out to stop it.

Wylan was nonplussed. "He'll come back. Where else does he have to go?" He dropped his hand on his belly with a hard smack and let out a resounding belch. "Ring the kitchen, will you? I feel positively empty."

"Sometimes," Jesper said, kissing his even now only slightly rounded cheek, "I wonder if you know how lucky you are to have me."

"Yes," Wylan answered drily, eyes on Jesper's rapidly filling cock. "Of course. You're such a catch."

"Have I told you lately how wonderful you are?" Jesper grabbed his belly- he'd found Wylan's belly button made an excellent fingerhold- and shook it.

Wylan smirked and reclined deeper into the pillows. "A couple times. But do tell."

"Later. I have to go give Cook a visit." With a waggle of his hips and a harder than necessary squeeze, Jesper slid off the bed. He could call Iske but it was more fun to go down to the kitchen himself, just to make sure Wylan's repast was extra filling. After all, if you extended the definition, he still fit in Jesper's lap and that wasn't what they wanted, now was it?

Jesper tucked his dick in his waistband and, whistling, tramped down the stairs.


	11. Chapter 11

"So," Kuwei said as casually as he could. "I'm leaving tomorrow."

"What?" Wylan asked, struggling valiantly to swallow the cookie Kuwei had shoved in there for this exact reason.

"I have a job. I mean, I'm doing a job."

“Oh, that's good,” Wylan said, briefly assuaged. He opened his mouth for another cookie. "Where are you going?"

Before Kuwei could answer, Jesper shot a suspicious look his way. “What kind of job? A job job or a Kaz job?”

Kuwei looked at him innocently. His pulse was only roaring in his ears. It was fine.

“Does it matter?" he asked. "A job's a job.”

He was about to congratulate himself on his non-answer when Jesper swore. “It's a Kaz job then.”

"No, it is _not_." Wylan sat up abruptly. His belly rolled into his lap. He scowled at Kuwei. "You are _not_ doing a job for Kaz."

Kuwei's eyes flashed. He'd expected some resistance but to be flat out told what he could and couldn't do? Absolutely not. "I share your bed. That does not make you in charge of me."

"Gentlemen," Jesper said.

"No, no," Wylan said. "You are not doing a job for Kaz. It's too dangerous."

Who did he think he was talking to?

"I already told you: you aren't in charge of me. I make my own decisions. I can't stay locked up here forever."

"You're not locked up!" Wylan protested.

"Oh, really? Where in Ketterdam can I go? I try to go out alone, you have a man follow me. I ask you why, you tell me it's too dangerous. Everywhere's dangerous, Wylan! I just want a life!"

An angry flush spread across Wylan's face. "And what? I'm keeping you from having one?"

"If you keep me inside all the time you are!"

"You go outside."

"With a guard." A bitterness Kuwei hadn't known he felt dripped from his voice. "That  _you_  placed on me. And never told me about," he ended in a sullen mutter.

“It’s obviously not that big of a problem if you went and saw Kaz by yourself! Of all the people, really, Kaz!”

“Hey, now,” Jesper said.

“Oh, come off it,” Wylan snapped. “You barely work for him. We both know, even on his good days, Kaz cares about no one but himself.”

“That's hurtful.”

“It's true," Wylan replied. "Kuwei, you can’t do this.”

“Give one reason why I should not.” Really, Kuwei wanted to hear this. He met Jesper and Wylan through Brekker. They worked for him first. But suddenly Kuwei wanted to, too, and they acted like he was a child too stupid to see how dumb he was.

”Because it's dangerous out there,” Wylan said. “For you, especially. What are you going to do if someone figures out who you are? No, you can’t go. I’ll send Kaz a message. You’re not doing this."

In that moment, Kuwei understood how truly Wylan underestimated him. Life had  _always_ been dangerous for him.

He grew up as a hidden Inferni. He escaped the imperial experimenters. He survived the Ice Court, stared a Second Army Heartrender in the face as she was about to kill him, and let a Zemeni sharpshooter pull a trigger on him. He may have not kept his secret completely hidden in the Little Palace but he had managed to leave there, get to Ketterdam, and not be extracted by the Ravkan spies that were very much in residence here. He could take care of himself.

Kuwei threw his legs off the bed.

"Where are you going?" Wylan demanded.

Kuwei sneered. He picked his trousers up off the floor. Holding them against his chest, he said, "Don't worry, I'm not leaving the house. My rooms are still down the hall. If you need me, I'll be there. And tomorrow, I  _will_  be leaving."

 

* * *

 

What was Wylan's problem?

Kuwei just wanted to feel useful. Jesper had work. Wylan had an empire. Kuwei was an unwanted house guest who had stumbled into being wanted. He tried to find tasks- organizing, reading, drawing- and only found himself in the way, his gestures unwanted.

He  _needed_  something to do. He had never spent so long idle. Hiding, yes, secluded. But idle? He had always had a task, whether it was suppressing his powers or learning to use them or helping his father formulate  _parem_  or, worse, trying to recreate it in his father's absence. Wylan acted like this was a suicide mission, when he was the one who had given  _kruge_  to the Dregs for Kuwei's protection. Did he think Kuwei would not ask his guard for work? The lackey might not know who he was exactly but certainly the dissimulation involved in his presence in Ketterdam.

He stood on Ketterdam’s putrid, grime-smeared docks and looked at the array of ships. They were of all sizes, flags from a dozen nations. The docks bustled with activity. Sailors loaded and unloaded, yelling up the gangplanks, and climbing the riggings. Petty merchers tallied logbooks and calculated sums on land. They walked back and forth, some thin and lithe, most with bellies swollen from food and drink. A few had ruddy hair and a few curls but none with both.

Wylan hadn't even seen him off. He'd stayed in his rooms.

Kuwei's nails sliced into his palms. Jesper had been gone first thing in the morning, too.

He was due to meet Brekker's people at nine bells. The schooner they would be leaving on sailed under the flying fish. The  _Gekroende Draeck_  was a long, low boat whose captain was willing to take on anyone, provided he was handed a few extra  _kruge_  notes.

Standing before the ship, Kuwei adjusted the strap across his chest. He stared at the black-painted sides and the sailors loading cargo and checking the sails. The ship wouldn't sail until half past ten bells. There was time yet to get onboard.

"Are you going to say goodbye or are you just going to watch me go?" Kuwei asked.

Jesper unfolded himself from the shadowy corner where he’d secreted himself.

"Wylan's sorry for overreacting," he said.

Kuwei fingered his bag. It was heavy. He dropped it to the ground. Who cared if it got dirty?

"He's not here, is he?" he asked. The answer was obvious. Wylan was too big to hide.

"He had business to attend to." Jesper adjusted his hat. He slid his thumbs under his suspenders and pulled them forward. "And, to be honest, he still doesn't think this is a good idea."

"If I needed his opinion, I would care."

"Yeah, you're being Mister Big Man Who Can Provide For Himself. I get it. I really do. But you're not part of the Dregs. You don't want to be."

"I can take care of myself."

"I'd really rather you didn't have to."

"I don't see why. You do jobs for Brekker all the time."

Jesper drummed his fingers on the handles of his guns. He glanced anywhere but Kuwei's face.

Jesper closed his eyes. He looked like he was trying to force his emotions down. "Kaz is like a brother to me- a scheming, always two steps ahead. Would kill me if I got in his way brother."

 _So not a brother at all_ , Kuwei thought sullenly.

"Whatever he told you, some part of its true. But most of it? A little loose. You can't be sure you're going where he says you are or that you're going to be doing what he says you are. You have to be careful."

Kuwei bristled.

"I'm more capable than either of you think. You have no idea the things I've survived. This is just a job. I'll be gone a month, if he cares. Brekker's men and I are going to Ravka. I'll-" Kuwei swallowed. "-be safe there."

Jesper dropped his thumbs with a sigh. "You don't get it, do you? It's not the job. It's Kaz."

"Who is your friend. I am glad you have such a high opinion of him."

Jesper made a frustrated noise. "You're not a gang member, Shuling. If things go wrong, will you even have a weapon you know how to use to protect yourself with?"

Kuwei raised his hands. He had flint in his pocket, as he always did. "Yes, I will."

"Wei..."

"It's Benba out here," Kuwei said, picking his bag up and throwing it over his shoulder, "Remember?"

 

* * *

 

"You're not hungry?" Jesper asked with a frown. It was unlike Wylan to only take seconds.

Wylan's hand on his belly was slack, neither massaging nor pressing. His gut didn't even look firm, just a gentle, pudgy slope.

"No," he said.

"Are you sure?" Jesper pushed the rest of his tart Wylan's way.

"I don't want it."

Jesper’s frown deepened.

Wylan wasn't taking Kuwei's absence well. His appetite had diminished. He was morose, eating for the routine rather than the pleasure, sighing moodily, too distracted to concentrate on managing his holdings or finances.

His vests were looser on him than they should be. His ball of a belly was too soft these days and empty. Whenever Jesper rubbed it lately, he found Wylan comfortable, sated, but not overfull. Jesper had a new set of clothes tailored not long before Kuwei left. At the rate Wylan had been going, his clothes should have framed him by now, kissed his form even. Instead, they hung, like they had been delivered yesterday.

Jesper hated this. Kuwei was still gone. Kaz refused to say when he would return or what he was doing. If he was meant to return. It would be so convenient for Kaz if Kuwei disappeared. Jesper didn't like thinking the worst of Kaz but, well, when your friend was Dirtyhands, your worst was his best.

"You have to eat," Jesper admonished.

Wylan had been gaining so fast and now that he'd stopped, all Jesper wanted to do was watch him pig out. Wylan was so happy when he was eating, so eager to show Jesper and Kuwei how much he was growing, how poorly everything fit.

Two months in Novyi Zem had turned Jesper’s soft merchling chubby and pot-bellied, clothes tight to the point of obscenity. Three weeks since Kuwei left for Ravka and Wylan had barely put on five pounds. It was almost insulting.

“You weren’t like this when I was gone,” Jesper commented one night while Wylan was lying in his arms. Jesper was playing with his curls, teasing them out and watching them spring back into place.

He didn’t really know, of course. Wylan couldn’t write or read, so any letters would have had to pass through an intermediary and there were some things you didn’t want others to read, especially Marya Hendricks. Mothers simply shouldn’t be told what their sons wanted to do to their lovers.

"I knew you'd come back," Wylan said. A worried divot appeared between his eyes.

Jesper’s hand stilled for a brief second, then he smoothed it with his thumb. "He'll be fine. Wherever Kaz sent him, he's got Rotty and Baas. They're on a job together. They'll watch each other's backs."

"What if they don't? They don't know him like we do. He's Shu, they'll hold it against him."

Jesper caressed Wylan's cheek. He ran a hand over the slope of Wylan's side. He wasn't losing weight, not yet, but if he kept not eating his fill, it was only a matter of time. "You're that worried, huh?"

"Are you really going to be jealous now? He could get hurt!" Wylan rubbed his face against Jesper's chest. "It's so much more dangerous for him. You can hide that you're Grisha. He can't hide everything he is."

"He's managed to do it for four years."

"With the Ravkans! What if someone recognizes him while he's traveling?"

"You really like him, huh?" Jesper said it unthinkingly. If he thought Kuwei stood a real chance of dying, he would be beside himself, too. Kaz hadn't lost anyone, though, not in a year, not on a job. Kuwei wouldn't break that streak.

"I do. I'm so worried about him, Jes. What if the Fjerdans find him? They kidnapped him before."

"And killed his father, I know."

Wylan leaned into him, silent and sad. Jesper tucked his head under his chin and held on.

He didn't know how to fix this but, by the Saints, he was going to try.

 

* * *

 

The Crow Club was busy for so early in the evening. Merchers and their lawyers were flush with cash from the harvest taxes. They crammed the tables, eager for their games of chance. More than a few sorry sods had joined them. Jesper tried not to hear the telltale whirring spin of Makker’s Wheel or the click of dice in a gambler’s hand. The Crow Club knew not to deal to Jesper but it wasn’t always easy for him not to ask.

He sucked in a breath and closed out the noise. This was business. The games were rigged, every last one. If he sat down, he would be playing at something he couldn’t win.

Jesper scanned the floor.

It didn't take long to find the man he was looking for. The cane was a dead giveaway.

Jesper crossed the room.

"Jesper," Kaz said, his tone neither here nor there. He leaned on his cane, gloved fingers clasped around the crow head handle. He didn't bother looking at Jesper, who stood just behind his right shoulder.

"I need to talk to you."

"About? Unless you’re looking for another job or have information for me, I don’t care." Kaz had always taken Jesper's semi-retirement from criminal life as a personal slight.

"Where is he?" Jesper asked.

"Your boy? At home, I assume, stuffing his face. You should probably go to him. By the looks of it, the baby's coming any day now."

Kaz was exaggerating. Empty-bellied, Wylan was maybe seven months.

 _And that's all he'll ever be_ , Jesper's mind supplied, _if Kuwei doesn't hurry up and come back_. "The other one."

Kaz lifted his shoulders and dropped them back down effortlessly. "The True Sea, I suppose."

"And if not?"

"Os Kervo. That's where his ship's leaving from."

Jesper should have known he wasn't going to get the truth from Kaz.

"Let me know if you hear anything," he said. "I'd like him to come back. Safe." He stressed the word.

Kaz gave him a dismissive wave. He was too involved in his latest scheme to care. Ever since Inej ended things, he had gotten cold.

Colder.

Jesper scrubbed a hand over his face. He often wondered if he imagined Kaz ever caring about anyone other than Inej. Even that seemed a stretch at times.

Jesper decided to take a walk. A small-boned man slipped in next to him, matching his stride.

"Jesper,” he said.

Jesper nodded at him. "Roeder."

"A word?” Roeder must have seen something in Jesper's expression because he continued. "You were talking about that Shu mark, yeah?"

"He's not a mark."

"Sure he is. My man's the one been watching him." Roeder licked his lips nervously. You would never be able to tell looking at him he was Kaz's spider and head of the Dregs' ears. Which was exactly why Kaz chose him. That and his loyalty. Roeder never wavered. "And he told me- my man, that is- the Shu's got a secret."

"Just because I have money doesn't mean I'm going to pay you to tell me," Jesper said, turning his arm over so Roeder could see the tattoo. "This is as original as it gets."

Roeder's throat bobbed. His fingers twisted together. "You don't need to remind me. This is a favor between," he pursed his lips, considering, "family. Dirtyhands doesn't like when people try to hide things from him. You don't tell him and he finds out? He has ways of showing you."

"And?" The harsh edge in Jesper's voice didn't convey the animus he felt hearing threats from a member of his own crew.

"He sent him somewhere he shouldn't go."

Jesper's skin chilled. "Shu Han."

Roeder twisted his fingers so tightly his knuckles turned a bloodless white. His eyebrows furrowed. In a hushed tone, he said, "There. And Ravka."

"Ravka?" What was the issue with that?

"That would be the secret. He's been getting these letters."

Jesper hadn't seen any letters.

"The Ravkans keep spies here. Everyone does, of course, but the Ravkans are a little strange. They don’t just spy on the Merchant Council. They also like to keep tabs on their own people. If you go missing from the Second Army long enough, they come looking for you. They send letters first, as a warning, hoping the person comes back on their own. Most only get one letter. In some cases, they send two. Benba must be pretty important to get three. I'm thinking they don't want to upset Van Eck Junior. Otherwise, they'd just take him. They give you a couple weeks to come back, then they pluck you off the streets and whisk you away. They've got no money so Grisha are like gold to them..." Roeder might as well be talking to himself now. Jesper's mind was whirling too fast to pay attention.

He spun on his heel. Kaz hadn't moved. He was still standing in the same spot, surveying his kingdom.

"Kaz." Jesper grabbed the man's shoulder. It was an immensely stupid move. 

Kaz's cane whipped out in one smooth move and smashed into his face. Jesper swore viciously. He touched his hands to his nose and cheeks and examined them. No blood. Kaz had hit him with the shaft. He'd bruise but there would be no permanent damage. His nose throbbed.

"What do you think you're doing, Fahey?"

Fahey. After all this time, Kaz wanted to play that. They'd grown apart, it was true. Kaz had become increasingly bitter after Inej left and downright glacial when she found somebody else.

Jesper clutched the bridge of his nose, focusing on breathing through the pain. 

"Where did you send him?" he asked.

Kaz dusted his shoulder off. There was no need. It was immaculate. "Where he could be most useful."

"You could have given him a job anywhere!"

"With what skills? He can't shoot. He doesn't know how to pick a lock or a pocket. He's never caught a mark." Kaz's eyes gleamed. "He came to me. You and Wylan were stifling him. He asked for work. I gave it to him."

"You were trying to get rid of him," Jesper accused.

Kaz didn't deny it. "You couldn't count the money people would pay if they knew who he really was. You had your fun. Consider this a favor: the Ravkans won't lose track of him again. Wylan gets what he asked for."

"That was months ago. The situation's changed."

"My service delivery leaves something to be desired, duly noted."

"Are you going to do anything?"

"Is your cock that in need of sucking? Let him go, Jesper. Wylan's plenty of man for you."

"I'm just asking you to bring him back. Nothing's happened to him in the entire time he's been here."

"Because you've kept him locked up and Roeder's had Jansen following him. He abandoned the Second Army."

"The Little Palace," Roeder corrected. Jesper stared at him. Roeder was a wretched, tiny creature as money hungry as Kaz and as hopelessly gone for him as Jesper once was. "He was never drafted. His military training was minimal. They mostly kept him in the labs."

"See, Jesper? The Ravkans can't afford to lose such valuable property."

"Actually," Roeder said, butting in again. "By all accounts, he's not. Valuable, that is." He pushed his glasses up his nose. Roeder could see perfectly fine, he just pretended otherwise. "He doesn't know how to recreate his father's work and he can barely decipher his notes. If it's an act, he's not going to break now. He's invested too much time."

"How do you know this?" Jesper asked.

Roeder blinked. "Are you asking for my sources?" He sounded affronted by the idea.

"Never mind. See, Kaz? He's no use to the Ravkans. Call off whatever scheme you've got going on."

"It's not a scheme exactly-"

Kaz cut his eyes at Roeder. The man's mouth snapped shut.

"No," Kaz said. Just the one word: no.

Jesper shook his head. If he were a stronger man, he'd tell Kaz to go fuck himself.

"Why not? Why the hell not, Kaz? I have served you for how long now and you can't even honor one request to bring him home? How simple is that? Don't sell one guy out and I'll do every job you ask me for the next year. Hell, the next two years."

"Keep your offer. I have enough half-decent shots."

"Half-decent?" Jesper scoffed in disbelief. "Why are you doing this? He's no threat to you. He's legally dead. He won't help the Ravkans which means he won't help anybody."

Kaz's flat black eyes stared at him. "You have Wylan. Don't you think that's enough?"

The only thing keeping Jesper from drawing on Kaz was the thought that Wylan would murder him if he got himself killed in a gambling den.

"So you don't want me to be happy, is that it?"

"I couldn't care less what you do with your life." Jesper convinced himself Kaz was lying through his teeth. He had to be. Kaz couldn't be like this- except hadn't he always been? What had his love for Inej ever been but a desire to create his own spider? He hadn't given up anything for her, hadn't made any cessions. She had changed her whole life and done her best to humanize him.

For the first time, Jesper started to understand why she left

"Don't ask for me the next time you need your 'half-decent shot'," was all he could manage. "Because I won't do it."

"As if I've ever needed to ask," Kaz replied. "You always come trotting right back in here on your own."

He had the last words but all Jesper could see was a lonely, miserable man lashing out at anyone he could.

 

* * *

 

Kuwei figured out what Jesper was on about, oh, right about when the ship pulled into Os Kervo.

Kuwei had had the best of intentions. He wanted to be less of a leech. He thought he could do a couple small jobs for Kaz Brekker. Kuwei was useful. He knew a couple languages. He’d been to a couple countries. He’d do the job, make a withdrawal in Ravka, and collect his pay from Brekker. Then he’d be done with this. He’d have funds and he would have confused anyone tracking him. It was, Kuwei rather thought, a very sensible plan, nothing a well-traveled, Little Palace-trained Grisha couldn't manage.

He'd just made one tiny miscalculation.

He always assumed the plans he’d been involved in when he was fifteen had been cursed by bad luck. The stakes had been incredibly high and Jan Van Eck, the man who offered him asylum, had turned out to be dishonest and cruel. There were so many variables, it would be near impossible for everything to go smoothly. As Kuwei was coming to find out, the vast majority of Brekker's plans went to pieces. The big bruiser type, Baas, said Dirtyhands always got what he set out for in the end. You just had to be willing to change the plan, if, that is, you knew what it really was in the first place.

Kuwei had not.

Shu Han was never on the table. Bhez Ju never passed anyone's lips. Yet here he was, in Shu Han's beautiful, ornate, deceptive capital, stuffing silver  _wen ye_  into his pocket so he could slip them to the disgruntled daughter of a county magistrate in exchange for a scroll he'd have three hours to copy and return. They'd cross the border back to Ravka, where Kuwei would claim to be returning to the Little Palace. The Ravkans would let him pass freely. They'd go west, using the pass Kaz shouldn't have known about,  _the pass that could get Kuwei sent back to the Little Palace and chained to a lab desk, Kaz Brekker, you prick_ , and catch a ship from there. He would have the sail home to translate the copy to Kerch.

It had taken them weeks to find a crossing they could take over the border. Now there was a twenty-four hour window where Kuwei making a single mistake could give the Shu the one person they had been searching for more than four years. Far, far too much time had seen Kuwei in Ravka in the company of two men who knew a hundred words of the language between them.

Kaz had this in mind the whole time. From the second Kuwei got stopped by  _stadwatch_ , he'd been planning this, just waiting to loop his string around Kuwei's wrist and demand coin for a woven bracelet Kuwei had never asked for.

The only thing Kuwei could do was succeed.

With an impossible plan. Kuwei's face was starting to hurt from scowling so much.

He would do this. He had to. The ship for Ketterdam left in three days’ time. They needed to get back across the border before then. It was impossible. They had to do it.

They burned through the day. The magistrate's daughter took their coin with dull eyes and handed Kuwei the scroll. Once he had it in his hands, he almost couldn't believe how simple it was.

It wasn't even an original work, just a copy of a section of the Annals, ancient court chronicles the Little Palace used to teach advanced Shu writing, and notes in the margins. Kuwei scrawled it hastily onto sheets of paper, focused on the three hour deadline. Baas and Rotty played cards while they waited for him to finish.

It took less than an hour. He checked the scroll twice and only had to make minor corrections.

They returned the scroll to the magistrate's daughter and paid her the other half of her fee. She sounded so bored telling them it would be their secret, Kuwei couldn't imagine she would expose them.

They crossed back into Ravka later that night, heading north towards Caryeva.

That was where things started to go pear-shaped.

The thing about hiding for most of your life was you never got completely comfortable. There was always a slight paranoia. It could go dormant for a while but, presented with the right situation, it came back.

Kuwei had been primed for weeks. He didn’t like being followed. He gave Kaz's flunky two days before he introduced himself.

Did Baas and Rotty think he wouldn't notice them falling in line behind him? They were a half pace too far back, enough that he could feel their presence but not catch their conversation.

"Benba," Baas called.

Kuwei didn't answer. He stretched his fingers. His flint had gone mysteriously missing during the border crossing.

It was amazing what non-Grisha thought they knew about Etherealki.

"Did you hear me?" Baas asked.

Rotty's footsteps were all but soundless in the grass. If Kuwei had been relying solely on his ears, he might not have even noticed.

Baas made a wheezing sound. He coughed. It was light at first, steadily growing harder and harder. Within seconds, he could barely breathe.

The vomiting coming from Kuwei's left was a far more gratifying sound. The chains Rotty had been carrying dropped to the ground with a stomach-churning squelch-splash.

Kuwei turned around. He drew the ether closer, increasing the concentration with a curl of his fingers.

Baas and Rotty were both doubled over. Their faces were a bright, scalded red. The chains lay in a puddle of vomit.

"Did you know the local peasants drink ether?” Kuwei asked. “They can't afford  _kvas_ in these parts so they make do. They put a drop in their after dinner drinks. It gets them a little drunk, enough that they don't mind getting up in the morning and working another sixteen hour day."

Baas hiccupped and gagged. Rotty was still puking.

Had they really had no better plan than to sneak up on him and tie him up? In Ravka, where he could easily claim Grisha status against two Kerch foreigners? Idiots.

"Personally, I've never tried it." Kuwei clenched his fist, pushing the concentration to the point of toxicity. He didn’t want them to black out just yet. They had a message to give Brekker. If they survived. "I'm not that interested in its liquid form. The gas has so many more fascinating properties. It's highly volatile, for one." He placed his hands on his upper legs and leaned over. Man, Rotty was really bringing it up. "That means it likes to release particles into the air. It's also highly flammable." He grinned at Baas. The brute's eyes were starting to bug out. "That means it catches fire easily."

They stared at him, uncomprehending.

"Oh. Right. I don't need fire to take you down. It's a common misconception that Inferni control fire. We control gas. If it burns, we can work with it. Which is great because flammable gas is everywhere. I could have used any kind, honestly. Ether is just one of my favorites. You really shouldn't breathe it, though.

"I'll be taking this now," he said, plucking his flint from Rotty's pocket. "These, too." He took both of their packs, slinging them over his shoulder. "Good luck finding a ship that will grant you passage. The ones that dock in Os Kervo are notorious for not accepting credit."

He was halfway down the road before he remembered the papers in his pocket. He pulled them out. With a scrape of his flint, he set them alight.

His hand trembled but you never did get used to botched kidnapping attacks. It would go away once his breathing steadied out.

Or when he stopped being furious.

When he got back to Ketterdam, he was going to tell Kaz exactly where he could put that cane of his. Then he was going to tell him to forget the name Kuwei Yul-Bo because, as far as anyone other than the King Nikolai and the Grisha Triumvirate knew, that man no longer existed.

Kuwei had been used by his own people and stolen by the Fjerdans, only to be captured and released by Kaz's people when his use had ended. The Ravkans had promised to help him end  _parem_ but it was a lie. They wanted to harness  _parem_ for themselves.

He had given Kaz a second chance. No more.

No one would ever use him again.  _Especially_  not Kaz “Dirtyhands” Brekker.

 

* * *

 

It was early morning when Kuwei reached the house. A fog drifted over the canals, turning the city white and cold. Kuwei’s breath misted in front of him.

He hesitated before bringing his fist up to knock on the door.

Would he even be welcome here? He had left, taking a job he didn’t have to after a fight in which he was inescapably wrong.

He knocked on the door again.

This time it flew open. He was yanked inside.

Strong, brown arms hugged him tight.

Jesper. Kuwei opened his mouth in surprise. Jesper let go of him to cup his face. He slid his fingers through Kuwei's hair and pressed their foreheads together.

"You're safe," Jesper said.

Kuwei couldn't help his relieved grin. "Of course, I am."

Jesper pressed Kuwei back against the door and kissed him. Over his shoulder, Kuwei saw Wylan. He looked so lovely and soft, framed by a halo of messy curls.

Panic crashed through Kuwei. They hadn't left on good terms. The last words he said to Wylan were in anger.

Jesper let him go and Kuwei felt lost all over again.

"I'm back," he said uncertainly, one hand gripping his arm.

"You are." Wylan's face split into a smile. His eyes were a dark, dark blue. "Welcome home."

Kuwei reached for him.

They stumbled up the stairs, the three of them trying to move as one, Kuwei half-gasping, half-laughing in relief. Jesper kept stopping to run his hands over him, to kiss him, to make a clever remark Kuwei barely heard. Wylan’s hand stayed on the small of his back, a warm, steady presence. A smile played on his lips.

Kuwei wanted to sob in relief. They weren't mad. They hadn't forgotten him. They still wanted him. They'd been waiting, just for him.

The bedroom door hadn’t even closed before Jesper was pulling his clothes off. The shirt was the first thing to go, then his belt. Holding Kuwei against him, back to chest, one arm across his front, Jesper popped the buttons with a move too smooth for anyone but a Fabrikator. He shoved his hand inside, past the waistband of Kuwei’s underwear, and found his prize.

Those long, clever fingers wrapped around Kuwei’s shaft and began to pump slowly. Kuwei bit his lip trying not to moan.

Jesper kissed his neck.

Wylan was stripping off his shirt. Kuwei's hands reached out, aching to touch him, to be wrapped up in him. He wanted to be pressed between them, the juxtaposition of hard and soft on either side, brown and white, Grisha and non.

Jesper's thumb ran over Kuwei's slit and he groaned, leaning back into him. It felt like it had been months since he'd touched them, touched anyone. Jesper's long-boned hands scorched his skin and left him feverish.

“Desperate much?“ Jesper asked, his voice scraping low against Kuwei's ear.

“Don't tease,” Wylan said. He was sitting bare-chested on the bed, his legs spread. “We don't want him out of commission this early.” He rubbed a hand over his belly, considering, and then smacked it.

Kuwei about swallowed his tongue.

“He's looking a little thin, isn't he?” Jesper said. “You thought he'd be bigger.” Kuwei nodded. “I did, too. Turns out he's not so good at eating without his little encourager here.”

“His little-“

"You. Wylan wants you here. Look how skinny he's gotten. He needs you." Kuwei's chest rose and fell with every breath. Jesper's hardness pressed against his back, the tip wet and leaking. His heated breath blew across Kuwei's ear and neck. "I know you suffered, too. You were so angry when you left."

"I-"

"I know," Jesper crooned. "You had your reasons. Wylan did, too. Now, I think you owe it to him to show him how much it hurt you to be away from him."

His arms slid away, his hand slipping off of Kuwei's length. He placed a hand in the center of Kuwei's back and pushed.

"Go."

Kuwei walked towards the bed on shaking legs. He sank to his knees before Wylan, that big belly obscuring his view of Wylan's face. He undid the buttons to Wylan’s pants, fingers shaking in his excitement. Wylan placed a hand on top of his head. Kuwei closed his eyes. Opening his mouth, he began to worship.


	12. Chapter 12

Kuwei’s first winter in Kerch, Wylan really outdid himself.

The holiday season in Kerch was a time of winter festivals and eating. Tithes to Ghezen were halved during the coldest months of the year, when the God of Profit was known to be fickle with his Coins of Favor. The extra  _kruge_  was to be spent on merriment, good food, and liberal amounts of brandy. Even the severest of merchers was expected to join the fun.

With Kuwei and Jesper at his side, Wylan didn't even try to hold back. Every day was a new chance to see how much his stomach could hold. Every morning was a time to wait with bated breath while Kuwei looped a tape measure around his waist and Jesper guessed whether the new inches were temporary or here to stay. Wylan was bloated nearly all the time now. The consternation on Kuwei’s face when he saw the unsteady numbers often had Wylan pushing himself that much farther to make up for it.

Jesper couldn’t feel too bad for him. When their strange little trio went out together, Wylan made it a point to drive Jesper to distraction. He’d order pint after pint of beer, belly cresting higher and higher with each one, then spend an hour openly massaging the crown of his gut and muffling increasingly large belches against his fist, all while holding a conversation like nothing was happening.

Kuwei was in on it, too. He was always picking out the heaviest beer on tap, telling Wylan  _drink up, that’s not nearly enough_ , his face a blank mask except when he broke it to snicker at Jesper and the tent in his trousers he was having trouble hiding. How the Saints kept  _him_  from hardness Jesper sorely wanted to know.

But let them enjoy their little game. Let’s see who was laughing when Kuwei couldn’t find his tape measure.

During twelfth month, when snow was piling on the sides of the streets and the wind had turned bitterly cold, Inej and Nina came to visit. Although Inej pretended not to notice Wylan's size, Nina kept up no such pretense. Her own curves had spread considerably over the years, though her fashion had not changed. She still favored sinfully tight, low-cut dresses that showed off a cleavage deep enough to suffocate a man and hips any woman would be happy to get between. Her hourglass figure was still there, though it had thickened considerably, wide-flaring hips and ample cleavage offsetting a fine double belly. She'd had a head start on Wylan and, by the Saints, she had used it.

Only the briefest look of surprise crossed Nina’s face when she saw Wylan. Then she was looping one plump, winged arm through his and telling the mercher all the desserts she wanted him to help her decimate.

“Sugar koekjes, speculaas, waffles, of course, you can’t get a good waffle anywhere outside of Ketterdam. We docked in the Southern Colonies just last week and what they were calling waffles-“ Nina shuddered. “Awful. Truly awful. Oh! And you have to try _pyshki_.” She looked Wylan up and down before patting his belly with a wink and a laugh. “But I’m guessing know all about those, don’t you? No?” she asked, seeing Wylan’s puzzlement. “Then we _have_ to go to Little Ravka. Inej, are you coming with us?”

They got _pyskhi_ in Little Ravka. And waffles in the Warehouse District. In the Geldin District, they found a stall selling _speculaas_ and applesauce, which was a combination Jesper was still trying to decide on. This was all before dinner to chase the sugar from their tongues, before Nina led them out to a waffle stand she swore up and down was the best in Ketterdam. Naturally, next to that was a stall selling _bokkepootjes_ and another selling Kaelish fruitcake.

It was, to put it mildly, a lot.

Inej had looked faint the first time she witnessed the spectacle of Wylan, Nina, and a frankly alarming pile of  _oliebollen_. That faintness had edged into a slightly glazed look as the week went on and Nina’s determination to introduce Wylan to every dessert in the city failed to fade.

Seeing Inej standing there, her arms crossed over her slight chest and her eyes fixed on the sight before her, it wasn’t hard to guess how a woman as generously proportioned as Nina managed to stay on a ship she had no interest in helping sail.

Jesper loped over to the former spider. Her eyes gave the barest flick in his direction. He grinned his patent reckless grin. Just to be obnoxious, he leaned down and offered his sincerest congratulations on how well she had taken care of their Nina.

"The same to you," she said distractedly.

Jesper was  _beaming_. He knew it.

He followed Inej’s gaze. Nina, who had just bitten into a Shu winter solstice treat, a pink rice ball drenched in syrup, was exclaiming in surprise over the sweet sesame filling. Wylan was nodding and making hand gestures to the tune of  _it’s good, right?_

"With Wylan," Inej finished and, ooh, clever Wraith, able to spit that out when Nina was licking syrup from each and every one of her fingers.

"I helped," Kuwei protested, appearing from nowhere to let Jesper know how much he hated being forgotten.

"That you did," Jesper said. He slung an arm around Kuwei’s waist and pulled the man into his side. "That you most certainly did."

Kuwei grumbled.

Inej didn't even look their way.

 

* * *

 

Kuwei groaned and leaned his head against Jesper's shoulder.

Jesper tilted his head to meet it. "What is it?"

"'m bored," Kuwei complained.

"Sorry."

Kuwei jutted his lip out sullenly. "You're not."

Jesper wasn't even looking at him. No one was paying attention to him. Wylan and Inej were deep in conversation- Kuwei assumed they were trading stories about Kaz Brekker and what a pleasure it was not talking to him on a daily basis- Jesper was already back to tapping the handles of his guns, and Nina- oh, Nina, was eyeing them shrewdly.

“So,” she said, “how long has this been going on?”

Jesper was faster to react. “Nina dear," he drawled, "whatever do you mean?”

Nina tapped Kuwei on the nose. She seemed to be under the continual impression they were friends and not colleagues in an anti-drug campaign or soldiers belonging to an army from which they were increasingly absent. “Silly boys. You thought I wouldn't notice.” She looked at Jesper hard. “Does Wylan know?”

“Of course, he knows.”

“Yes, but have you  _told_  him?”

Kuwei was confused. Told Wylan what?

“Nina,” Jesper replied. His tone was razor-tipped. “ _Trio,_  not  _duos_.”

Oh, that.

Nina blinked. “I see. Well, then,” she said too quickly for a true believer. “My work here is done.”

Kuwei's brow wrinkled. “You didn't  _do_  anything," he said.

“Untrue,” Nina said, switching to Shu. “I blessed your union. Things could have gone very nasty for you if I didn’t.”

This was true. Nina could reanimate corpses. Kuwei would prefer not to have a hopping ghost following him around.

“You were my friend before you were Wylan's,” Jesper grumbled. He hadn't understood Nina's words but her body language was clear. “And you're Grisha. Saints, Zenik, what'd I ever do to you?”

She sniffed and adjusted her bra. It looked about as well-fitting as one of Wylan’s waistcoats. Jesper's eyes glanced quickly away. “Us big people gotta take care of each other.” She winked at Kuwei before punching Jesper in the arm. “Don't worry, darling,” she told him as he scowled and rubbed it. “You're still my favorite Zemeni.”

Her ample hips swayed as she walked away. It took a minute.

“Do you even know any other Zemeni?!”

Jesper set off after Nina. Kuwei, because he had nothing better to do other than sit with scary Inej, followed.

Jesper stalked up behind Wylan and clamped hands on his shoulders. Wylan tilted his head back, face inquiring.

His fingers drumming on Wylan’s shoulders, Jesper said, “Wylan, tell Nina I am not cheating on you with Kuwei.”

“You aren't?” Wylan asked, eyes wide. He placed a hand over his heart and wiped away a false tear. “What joyous news. Kuwei, my friend, I am so sorry for suspecting you.”

“Wylan's freckles don't go below his neck,” Kuwei said. Both of Nina’s eyebrows raised. Only one of Inej’s did.

“Spoilsport,” Jesper accused.

“Sometimes Wylan calls Jesper the wrong name during sex.”

“ _Not_  a spoilsport,” Nina decided. She leaned forward. “What does he call him?”

“Excuse me,” Wylan interjected, “I don’t recall being the one who lit our sheets on fire.”

“That happened once.”

Wylan raised two fingers. “Twice.”

Kuwei sniffed. “That time was an accident.”

“Was the other time  _on purpose_?” Jesper asked.

“You're happy?” Inej asked Wylan in her soft way. Kuwei and Jesper were bickering still, while Nina was trying to get the name of Wylan’s secret crush.

Wylan smiled. He leaned back in his chair and rested one hand against his ample stomach. “I am.”

“How come no one ever asks if  _I'm_  happy?” Kuwei muttered.

“Because you're a brat,” Jesper said.

“A very cute brat,” Wylan added.

“I change my mind.” Kuwei pried Jesper’s fingers off Wylan’s shoulder and put his own in their place. “Jesper, I'm leaving you.”

Wylan’s grin spread. “My plan all along.”

 

* * *

 

"When are you going to tell them?" Nina asked. Trust a spy to turn a moment alone into an interrogation.

"Never," Kuwei replied. Arms crossed, he leaned on the windowsill, gazing determinedly out at Ketterdam’s rooftops.

"The king isn't pleased," Nina persisted.

"You talk to the king now?"

Nina Zenik wasn't exactly what you could call a friend to Kuwei. Nor was she an informant. She was a touchstone, a connection to a world Kuwei had left behind.

She wouldn't turn him in. That was proved months ago when he'd reached out and asked for her help. Nina would have killed him once to stop  _parem_. If he'd been older, she wouldn't have hesitated. But he hadn’t and she had and later she had pressured him into giving her something she should never have taken and now she was something that never should have been. He was alive because of her and she was what she was because of him and both of those decisions had been hers. When he told her what the Ravkans were really doing, she had made another choice: to run interference from a distance.

Strange, terrifying things had begun showing up at the edges of  _jurda_ fields. They watched, hair flowing about them. They waited, cheeks flushed. They never approach. In the morning, there would be bodies in the fields, both fresh and long dead. In some places, there were only skeletons, in others, a grey ash.

Hundreds of farms had been abandoned. Dozens of farmers had burned their own fields. Those that hadn't had them burned for them. _Jurda_ prices were now so far outside what the average user could afford that the buyers were easy pickings, perfect for an undead strike force to come in and take everything they had.

"Genya keeps me up to date." Nina rubbed a finger over her lip. "I'm sure it's not that bad, Benba. If you'd just go home-"

Kuwei scowled. "Ravka is  _not_ my home."

She raised her hands, spreading chubby fingers wide. "I won't fight you there. But if you'd just go back, even for a little while..." She trailed off, looking at him expectantly.

"They want me to make  _parem_."

"To find an antidote."

Kuwei snorted bitterly. Nina never gave up her faith in the Second Army. Get rid of jurda? Sure. Might as well keep it out of Shu hands. But actually question the Little Palace’s motives? "You and I both know there isn't one,” he said. “ _They_ know that. But they still ask. The  _Kherguud_ are running on something weaker. They think if I tell them, they'll win the war." He shrugged. Maybe it was helplessly. Maybe bitter.

"It can't be that bad."

"It is."

The good thing about Nina was, for all her idealism and love of country, she had experienced  _parem_ firsthand. It had changed her irreparably, making her a horror to nearly everyone but herself. That had been pure  _parem_ , the last his father had managed to smuggle out of Shu Han when they were desperate for a country that would offer them refuge. One hit and she had been changed forever. She would ask but she wouldn't force him to return.

"Oh, Kuwei," Nina said. She smoothed the collar of her dress. Her full breasts, which Kuwei was starting to think bulged over the top of all her dresses, quivered. "You used to be so happy there."

He wished that weren't true. But he had been, once, so hopeful and determined until he realized being valued for contributions to a war wasn't the same as being valued. It certainly had nothing to do with being liked.

"But I think," Nina said, as if coming to her senses, "you're happy here."

"I am. I love- it here," Kuwei said, answering clumsily.

Nina hummed. "Have you asked Wylan about an indentureship? I'm sure he'd agree. The Triumvirate would have to buy him out and-" she grimaced delicately "-it would be difficult for them to find that kind of money."

“I’ll figure something out,” he said.

 

* * *

 

By the end of the holiday season, Wylan’s waist had swelled by at least four inches. It was hard to tell how big he actually was, since Jesper and Kuwei made sure he was constantly eating, but it was somewhere between four and four and a half inches using Kuwei’s tape measure. Wylan, just to frustrate Kuwei and make Jesper laugh, had snacked on a dozen creme horns while Kuwei tried and failed to get an accurate measurement. Wylan had shoved a crème horn in his mouth to keep him from whining too much.

Something about numbers fascinated the Shu. Jesper was pretty absentminded about keeping Wylan fed. He bought pastries as he thought of them, picked up cookies when he saw them, grabbed a couple waffles on the way home from the gun shop. Kuwei, who received a tidy sum from the Ravkans for pretending to be among the departed and who spent a grand total of three days a week doing anything like actual work, kept an impossibly close mental tally of how much Wylan had eaten every day, in addition to when he ate and how much more he could fit in. Jesper would call it bizarre if he didn’t utterly enjoy the results.

Which he could now say, resolutely, he did.


	13. Chapter 13

Wylan ran a washcloth over his arm and sighed. He leaned back into the tub, letting the hot water slosh over his chilled chest.

Steam rose over the bath, the room so humid sweat prickled on his exposed, pink skin. The air was thick with it, hot and muggy as a swamp. His lungs ached to breathe in that blissful heat.

The tub had fit him once. It had been enormous, absolutely engulfing him. Now it encroached on his sides and made it impossible to spread his thighs more than an inch. Now the water, even at its highest, barely covered what Jesper and Kuwei so happily called breasts.

For all he had disliked them at first, Wylan had developed a fondness for them. Not as much his companions, certainly but they were nice, something to hold. A sign, like his widening backside and spreading thighs, that he was growing larger.

He lathered soap into the washcloth. They were a pain to clean, though. They got so sweaty. Well,  _he_ got sweaty, for all that it was getting colder every day now. And no wonder when a brisk walk made him overheat and climbing the stairs left him gasping for breath.

Lazy. That's what his father would call him. Wylan grinned closed-mouth. He was now.

He pushed at this sides of his tummy experimentally. Reclining in the tub, his stomach spread in a thick layer, pressing down on him with a heavy, comforting weight. It was soft, ponderous, and well below full.

He rubbed the washcloth over it, making sure to get in between the rolls. He could feel a dull ache of emptiness. It wasn't hunger, not really. It was much less demanding than that, the off feeling of not being truly full or, better, stuffed. He hadn't felt true hunger in, oh, months. It had been replaced by uncountable days waking up feeling last night's dessert at the back of his throat, his tummy tender and sore but oh so ready for another meal.

Wylan ran a hand over his side, sliding down to heft his underbelly. He could tuck his fingers under it, in the tiny hang that was beginning to form. It dipped in the middle. He rubbed that little divot, marveling.

In moments like this, Wylan forgot how gradual his gain had been and he gazed in a mixture of shock, amazement, and sheer, heart-stopping wonder at the fat, bloated creature he had become. _Van Ecks_ didn't get fat. They never overindulged, never ate to excess, never did anything that could limit the expansion of profit.

He sat up on his elbows and looked down the length of himself, at the breasts Jesper loved, the belly Kuwei was helping grow, the chunky hips they both couldn't help grabbing, the thick thighs they happily put their faces between.

This was not the body of a Van Eck. It was one of a well-loved man who wanted for nothing, not food or money or love.

A wide smile spread across Wylan's face.

He was everything his father never wanted him to be.

A sound made him pause in his washing.

With a well-oiled turn of the knob, the bathroom door opened. Wylan leaned back to see who it was. There was no real need. A servant would have announced themselves. A guest wouldn't have come in at all.

There were only two people who had silent entry into the bathroom and one had left for work hours ago.

"And where have _you_ been?" Wylan asked Kuwei, whose black hair was dusted white.

"Nowhere," the Shu said. He frowned at a snowflake melting on his shoulder.

Wylan raised his brow. "So you wouldn't happen to know anything about the Crow Club smelling like low tide for the last few days? From what I hear, all the clientele's been driven away by the stench."

Kuwei plopped onto the floor next to the tub. Crossing his arms over the lip of it, he rested his chin on them. "Nope," he said cheerfully. "Inferni, remember?"

 

* * *

 

"I know what an Inferni does. I had an excellent education."

Kuwei rolled his eyes. Wylan so liked to remind him. Not being able to read and being uneducated weren't the same thing, yes, Kuwei  _knew_.

"Sulphur is a flammable gas," Wylan continued.

"Is it?" Kuwei asked. He dipped his hand into the soap-clouded water. Dang it. He would have liked to see what was underneath. Wylan’s face was oh so flushed and pretty, Kuwei could only imagine how the rest of him looked. "Alys' monthly report came in, by the way. I left it downstairs, sorry. I know you were really looking forward to reading how many curtains she bought this month."

Wylan's cocked eyebrow stayed where it was.

"They can all breathe," Kuwei said, defending himself. "It's not like anyone can pin it back to me."

Wylan's eyebrow said otherwise. Brekker was too damn smart.

In an ideal world, Kuwei would have charged into the Crow Club and ripped Kaz Brekker a new one. Time and again the man had used him for his own ends, never apologizing or offering compensation. One on one, away from his people, Brekker might fall. Kuwei might stand a momentary chance of touching him, of doing the slightest bit of damage. If he got him alone. If he had the jump on him. If Brekker didn’t see him coming twenty miles off. It was long odds and Kuwei wasn’t in the mood for betting. But, even halfway across the city, he could direct certain gases to go certain unwanted places and lost business to Brekker was a black eye to others.

The man didn’t scare him.

Well, in point of fact, Dirtyhands scared him a lot but sometimes revenge meant swallowing your fear and flooding a few criminal-infested casinos with methane and sulphuric gas.

Wylan looked at him with narrowed eyes. Very expressive today.

“What?” Kuwei asked.

"Is that my shirt?"

"It doesn't fit you," Kuwei said defensively, glancing down at the piece of clothing. It was mercher white, a color distinctive to the Kerch and utterly unremarkable to everyone else. More importantly, it, along with the entire closet of Wylan’s castoffs, fit.

Wylan hummed amusedly. “It looks good on you. You know, there’s never been a Shu mercher in Ketterdam before."

Kuwei wrinkled his nose. "And there won't be. Finances are boring."

"Are they?” The water in the tub sloshed as Wylan rolled his shoulders, water droplets dribbling down them. Kuwei fought the urge to chase them with his tongue. “I have some letters on the table, if you'd be so kind."

Kuwei considered saying no. He could strip naked and join Wylan in the tub. Barring that, he could show him some neat little tricks he could do with air bubbles. It would be fun.

Wylan’s eyes closed. His fingers fluttered on the edges of the tub.

Kuwei grabbed a penknife and started slitting letters open.

Kuwei enjoyed reading to Wylan. It was nice and not annoying at all. They whiled away many an afternoon together doing just that, Wylan plowing through enough food for a large family while Kuwei went over assignments of accounts, lease tables, and agreements of all kinds. He improved his Kerch and he got to spend time with Wylan. There really was no downside.

Except it was the end of the quarter and that made everything _boring_. Suddenly everyone wanted to send in all their receipts and loan payments, which all had to be read and calculated and catalogued. Wylan ran the numbers in his head. Kuwei was just helping him check for errors.

An hour was fine. Two hours? Two hours while Wylan's bathwater chilled so much he climbed out of the tub and sat on a chair, slowly drying in the biggest bath linen Kuwei had ever seen?  _Not_ fine.

Done, Kuwei lifted the document (an agreement for the sale of real estate that occurred three weeks ago) and, with a dramatic opening of his hand, let it drop on the floor. It landed with a  _whump_ , sending papers in every direction. The "to read" pile tipped sideways. After a moment's hesitation, first one document, then the others spilled onto the floor. Water spots bloomed on a balance sheet. A note from a borrower succumbed to a puddle.

“I was working on that,” Wylan said, watching them fall, clearly amused. As fussy as he was, he didn't care if papers he couldn't read got wet.

“You're not paying me enough,” Kuwei replied loftily. “I quit.” He kicked a foot out, letting it brush against Wylan's shin. The linen slipped, revealing a plump, pale thigh glistening with water droplets.

“I'm not paying you enough?” Wylan indulged.

Kuwei raised his chin. “You're not paying me at all.”

“So you quit.”

Kuwei got to his feet. His fingers brushed across Wylan’s shoulder, then his collarbone. It was a heady feeling, standing over Wylan, taller, inescapable. Unignorable.

He slid his hands up Wylan's neck, caressing it with his thumbs. Wylan's skin was warm, still heated from the bath. It felt good under Kuwei's hands.

“I could give you an allowance,” Wylan continued, settling back in his chair. His amused eyes looked up at Kuwei. Saints, he looked so big. His chunky thighs ballooned over the sides of the chair and his linen-covered belly curved over his lap. There was power in his frame and an unassailable confidence Kuwei had been watching grow over the last few months. “A couple  _kruge_  a week for, oh, companionship.”

Kuwei wrinkled his nose. The Ravkans paid him plenty. When all you wore was government clothes and all you ate was government food, and all you did was government work, the stipend just sat in an account, building. He had money for months.

"If I had an allowance, you'd have to charge me rent."

Wylan smirked. "I'm not that much of a Kerch."

"You are exceedingly Kerch. Except your hair." Kuwei flicked a curl. "Your hair is all Kaelish."

"Jesper's the Kaelish one," Wylan reminded him.

Jesper looked about as Kaelish as a brick. Which, good. People from the Wandering Isle were jerks of the first order. Murderous, blood-drinking jerks.

“Though I suppose you could say I have a little Kaelish in me.” Wylan paused. “Most nights.”

Kuwei snickered.

“You should laugh more,” Wylan said. “It makes you look freer.”

Kuwei was not sure what that meant. Wylan’s grip on the linen had loosened. It was sliding down his chest, revealing soft pecs and a gorgeous slope of belly.

"Were you ever going to mention the letters?"

With a shock to his core, the words yanked Kuwei back to reality.

The truth of it must have shown on his face. Wylan squeezed his leg. Heat pooled in Kuwei's groin. Even Wylan's fingers were getting pudgy.

"Did you really think Jesper wouldn't tell me?"

"Jesper knows?"

"How do you think he got that bruise on his face? He asked Kaz to make sure you got home safe." Kuwei's mind stuttered. Home. Wylan said _home_. "I'm guessing you thought we wouldn't find out."

"I hoped."

"You hoped." Wylan didn't sound impressed.

"It's gotten me this far."

Wylan leaned back. He studied Kuwei with a bemused expression.

“I missed you,” he finally said.

Kuwei flushed and ducked his head. He glanced up, meeting Wylan's clear blue eyes. “I missed you, too. It doesn't look like Jesper's been taking too bad a care of you, though,” he teased.

Kuwei squished Wylan’s belly together and let it go. It was certainly bigger than he remembered, with two new, beautiful rolls tucked underneath his plump pecs on either side. A couple more pounds and they might even connect in the middle, forming one single roll all the way across.

Sadly, Wylan's shirt fit him much better than they normally did. His waistcoat was still tight, less corset than a very clear depiction of indulgences. Kuwei had enjoyed undoing the buttons of those. He would have liked to get Wylan out of his shirt but apparently there were things like decorum and business and the possibility of someone other than Jesper walking in on them.

Kuwei didn't see how fondling Wylan through his shirt was any better. Kerch understandings of propriety were baffling.

He squeezed Wylan's breasts, producing a low moan. He couldn't say for sure, but he thought those had gotten bigger, too. Considering how much Wylan had eaten for dinner last night and breakfast and lunch today, Kuwei would be seeing a whole lot more of them soon. A few months from now and these cute little handfuls would be overflowing his hands and there'd be no room on Wylan's lap.

The thought was...exciting.

"Do you need help?" Wylan asked, prodding none too gently.

Kuwei shook his head. "I'll manage."

A crease formed on the merch’s forehead.

"I'll figure it out,” Kuwei insisted. “There's nothing you can do." Benba belonged to the Little Palace. That was the price of asylum. Kuwei became Benba and Benba became a tool of the state. He had been so excited by the thought once, back when he thought the goal was to make a difference, not a weapon.

"Surely there's some loophole..."

There was. It was called hide out in the house of your lover, who just so happened to be one of the most powerful men in the only country Ravka had semi-stable relations with. Kuwei hadn't engineered it that way but it was working, wasn't it?

He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about anything at all, to be honest, except Wylan, Jesper, and the place he had here, in smelly, dirty, wonderful Ketterdam.

He busied himself poking Wylan's chub. He'd had a big lunch, roast beef and mashed potatoes, something vaguely green. He was as determined as Kuwei to make up for time lost.

Kuwei tried to remember what Wylan had looked like thin. He failed miserably. Maybe not thin. Slim, that was a better word. Kuwei had it on good word from Jesper and Cook that thin and Wylan had always been at war with each other. Kuwei just meant back when he'd actually had a waist.

Kuwei swallowed.

He looked really, really good without one.

Wylan grabbed his shirt. He yanked on it, knocking their foreheads together. "Hey," he said. His breath was warm on Kuwei's chin. "I'm glad you're back. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

What was there to say? Kuwei had made a bad decision to cover up another bad decision. They'd seemed fine at the time, even smart. Now they were just testaments to how horrible people could be.

He closed his eyes. His skin thrummed. A low energy vibrated under the surface. He didn't even want to kiss Wylan. He just wanted to stay right here, their foreheads pressed together.

Safe.

That was what he felt around Wylan. It didn't matter what they were doing, whether Wylan was fashioning an explosive or telling him about the other merchers at the Exchange, Kuwei just felt like he could relax, like no one was going to tell him to pack his bags, no one was coming after him.

What could the Ravkans do? Wylan was a Van Eck. What could Brekker do? Kuwei, with a few twists of his fingers, could have him on the floor, gasping for breath.

Kuwei, for the first time in a long time, felt secure. He'd proven he could take care of himself. He'd come back and this house was waiting for him and so were Jesper and Wylan.

He'd gotten what he wanted. He'd proved what he wanted to prove. Never mind Brekker or the Little Palace, here, in Wylan's house, he was untouchable.

Now he just wanted to be here, with Wylan, making sure he was full every second of every day.

"Have I told you why I like this?" Wylan asked, his expression self-satisfied. He had a knack for knowing what had Kuwei distracted.

"Because you like eating?" Kuwei tried.

"I do," Wylan conceded. "But I like the idea that I can change myself  _without_ ," he stressed the word, "tailoring. It was very freeing being you, I have to admit. I would never do it again. I thought I'd try something similar."

The knack, alas, did not go both ways. "You wanted to tailor yourself?" Kuwei guessed. He didn’t quite follow. The last time Wylan had been tailored, Kuwei had suddenly acquired a twin. This…was something else.

"Nothing so drastic." Wylan squeezed a handful of belly. His smugness turned soft and a touch proud. "Well, maybe a little drastic."

Kuwei’s brows knitted together. He didn't like where this conversation was going at _all_. He knew Wylan knew he was gaining weight and obviously he liked it but- "Are you saying you gained weight because you didn't like the way you looked?"

Wylan pursed his lips. "You sound like Jesper.” He sighed. “I bear a strong resemblance to my father, Kuwei. Now, not so much.”

Jan Van Eck was a very attractive man. Kuwei decided this was not a smart point to make.

He let his hands slide down Wylan’s chest and squished Wylan's breasts together. "I like these," he said. He squeezed Wylan's belly. "And this." He kissed Wylan's soft jawline. "This, too."

"And I like your face, even if I wouldn't wear it again."

Kuwei felt a hot flush spread over his cheeks. Wylan didn't give out compliments often.

"Cook said I ruined her dinner party. I’ve never been to one."

Wylan reached a hand up to tuck Kuwei's hair behind his ear. Kuwei ducked his head, cheeks warm. Wylan smiled. "Kaz and I may have collapsed a few floorboards."

How long until Wylan could do that alone?

Kuwei stood up straight. "I'll get the bell. What do you want?"

"You aren't going to ask whether I even want anything?"

Kuwei just looked at him.

"Ring the bell," Wylan sighed.

 

* * *

 

“What are you doing?”

Kuwei's shoulders jumped. Turning around, he drew a stabilizing breath and pasted on a smile. “You say that as if I'm up to something.”

“You're in my office alone,” Wylan said from where he filled the doorway. He crossed his arms and lifted a pale brow. “It's not exactly where one goes to amuse oneself.” He stepped forward.

Had Kuwei mentioned he liked the way Wylan's belly jiggled when he walked? It quivered deliciously, only coming to a rest moments after the rest of him had. It was mesmerizing, so mesmerizing, in fact, that Kuwei didn’t realize what Wylan meant to do until he was already standing in front of him.

Reaching around him, Wylan plucked the letter from Kuwei's back pocket. “What's this?”

“A letter.”

“I can see that.”

Wylan crossed his arms over the shelf of his gut. “So you're stealing my letters now? Should I be worried you’re selling business secrets to my competitors?”

Kuwei stopped short.

He could lie. He _should_ lie. Wylan's eyes would keep his secret. But…

But. He rarely left the house. He didn’t know any of Wylan’s competitors, certainly not well enough to conspire with them. Wylan couldn’t read the writing on the letter, for all it was in Kerch script. He could still put two and two together and come up with a sum that didn’t equal secret business dealings, _Saints have mercy_. “It's not your letter. It's mine. From...” Kuwei couldn't say who it was from. Self-incrimination was a talent he’d been trained out of.

Wylan's eyes narrowed.

“Are you in trouble?”

“No!” Kuwei grimaced. “Not really.” He ran his nails over his palms. “It's nothing you need to worry about.”

“Uh huh.”

Kuwei wondered if kissing him would get Wylan to change the subject. He thought better of it.

“It’s fine,” he said. “Really. Trust me.”

They shared a long look and then Wylan handed the letter back.

“I don’t like this,” he told Kuwei.

“I know,” Kuwei answered.

“You’ll tell us if it gets bad?”

Kuwei didn’t know what to say to that. He nodded mutely. He looked down at the letter in his hand.

A scuffing of feet on the floor had them both turning.

“What are we doing?” Jesper drawled.

“Nothing,” Kuwei said quickly.

Jesper looked to Wylan, who scowled.

“Aw, don’t be like that, sweetheart,” he said.

Wylan scrunched up his nose and said nothing.

Jesper leaned against the doorframe, hand gripping the lintel, and yawned hugely. “I wake up to a cold bed to find my two lovelies alone in the office without me at, oh,” he pulled an imaginary watch from his pocket and checked it. “Ass ‘o clock at night. What’s going on?”

“We're just having a chat,” Wylan said.

“Hmm. Could that chat be finished in bed? It’s warm and while _some_ of us don’t need their beauty rest…”

Wylan shoved him. Jesper caught him by the elbow and drew him in, grinning at the startled look on Wylan’s face. He cupped Wylan’s chubby face, dropped a kiss on his lips, and, so low Kuwei couldn’t hear it, murmured a few words.

Wylan sagged. He nodded once, curtly.

Jesper’s eyes turned to Kuwei.

“Come on,” he said. “I’m going to need two of you to warm the bed up. It’s _icy_.”


	14. Chapter 14

"I don't remember the formula," Kuwei said. His eyes were carefully blank as he laid the contract down on the table. "And I'm never going to. And if you don't like that, you can talk to my employer."

Hoyt, a burly man of indeterminate origin clad in a red-embroidered purple _kefta_ , stared at the contract. The noise of the inn swirled around them, masking their conversation without dulling its intensity.

The inn was a way place halfway between Os Kervo and Kribirsk, in the center of what had once been the Unsea. Kuwei would like to say it was the only place he was willing to meet, that he'd chosen here and nowhere else. It would be nice to have some control. The truth is, he'd been here fifteen minutes when Hoyt sat down across from him and ordered them both a drink.

Kuwei swirled the tea in his glass. He made no effort to drink it.

You couldn’t run from the Second Army forever. Oh, you could try and Kuwei had but they would always catch up. They had spies everywhere, in every major city and every minor port. Eventually, no matter where you were, their patience would run out and their forces would start to close in.

Kuwei had done little to further the recreation of _parem_ , had only wasted years in labs churning out consistently disappointing nostra and reminding people how very poor his memory and pharmacological skills were. Still, the belief remained that, in some deep recess, some hidden fold of his mind, some bit of chemistry was lodged. If the Ravkans couldn’t get it out, someone might. With jurda crops failing worldwide, the Ravkans’ desperation was slowing down. It wasn’t gone. They _would_ know the secret of _parem_.

And he had been gone so very long.

The first letter sent to Wylan’s address wasn’t enough to scare Kuwei. If they knew he was at Wylan’s, they also knew it would be an international incident to try and abduct him. The letter was meant to shock him, to remind him of the allegiance he had sworn in exchange for asylum.

Kuwei ignored it.

The second letter wasn’t for another month. They were keeping Kuwei on his toes. Maybe they even expected Wylan or Jasper to read them and mount additional pressure.

Unperturbed, Kuwei did what he did best.

He waited.

He waited until the letters piled up, one after the other, until they created a disorderly little stack of ten. Then he gathered them together, tied them up with string, struck his flint, and burned them to ash.

He kissed Wylan and Jesper goodbye. This was something he had to do, he told them and they were too smart not to guess at what wasn’t said.

Gaining passage on a ship was easy once he showed his pass, the one decorated with the Little Palace seal. The journey was familiar now, the True Sea colder the farther north he traveled. He had never understood how anyone could love such cold, unforgiving lands.

They docked in Os Kervo. Only one other ship in the harbor was flying Kerch sails, a small, tidy warship with elegant lettering on the side. Kuwei pretended he hadn’t seen it.

He didn’t go to Os Alta. Instead, he sent a report from Kribirsk, setting the return address as a well-known hotel in Os Kervo. The Zemeni jurda farmers he had consulted with, he wrote, were unable to shed light on the plague afflicting the crop. Whether new strains would be resistant, Kuwei wasn’t able to find out. At the bottom of his letter, he penned a postscript:  _Shu resentment is dying down in the Kerch capital. There’s a thriving refugee community, if anyone is interested in sending aid._

Hoyt found him within the hour.

He wasn’t alone. Besides Hoyt, there were three Grisha in the room. A Squaller stood near the fireplace, nursing a mug. Two Fabrikators sat at a table conveniently within earshot. The threat was clear. Grisha didn't roam freely this far from an army post. If they were here, they were here for Kuwei.

“It's a five-year contract," Kuwei said, unnecessarily. Hoyt’s eyes had already tracked the papers. "To be renewed as needed."

"And what would a disgraced former councilman's wife want with you?"

Alys' name was on the contract. A compromise. Wylan had wanted it to be his. Kuwei had refused. A thousand extra a month and Alys agreed to sign and forget.

Hoyt searched it over. He could search all day. He wouldn't find anything. The document was real, carefully worded as only a true Kerch could do it, checked twice by Wylan and his lawyer, terms clear and, most importantly, legal. All of it was, in Kerch terms, legal, binding, and indissoluble by outside parties. If Ravka tried to interfere, the Merchant's Council would be after them. Even Ravka would hesitate to choose Kuwei Yul-Bo over its only real trading partner.

Well, Benba Yul-Dawr.

Kuwei smiled blandly. "She wants me to teach her son about Shu Han. The language, the culture, all that. She thinks there's a business opportunity there."

“Really.”

“It’s what the contract says.”

Hoyt looked at him dispassionately. It was a hard look to describe but if Kuwei had to he'd say it was _you did it. You got out and I didn't._

It was _lucky_ and lost hope, _good for you_ and _too late for me_.

"They'll be after you when the contract's up," Hoyt warned.

"She's promised to renew."

"She's Kerch. They lie."

Kuwei shrugs and stands up. “Lots of people do.”

He made to leave. Hoyt grabbed his arm.

They were never friends. Probably, they'd talked once before today. It would have been in the labs, in passing, Hoyt just another Alkemi trying and failing to recreate Kuwei’s father's work. Kuwei couldn't tell you where Hoyt came from, when he reached Ravka, if there was anywhere left for him back home.

But he knew the look.

Not everyone bought into Ravka’s savior mentality. There have been too many wars, too many child soldiers, too many people brought over the border with the promise of life on someone else's terms.

"Make sure you sign a new contract before this one's up," Hoyt urged, his voice hushed. His eyes chanced the barest glance at the Squaller, then away. Kuwei blinked, betraying nothing. He knew what Hoyt was risking with these words. "They'll let you do that. You get a contract and you hold onto it as long as you can, you hear me?"

The man's blue-gray eyes were fierce, edged with determination. His grip was strong on Kuwei's arm.

"I will," Kuwei promised.

He left that place and made for Ivets. Os Kervo was closer but he’d be damned if he touched the port city. The road there would be paved with Grisha looking to intercept him and take him back to the Little Palace “to talk”. He’d be better off skirting the Obol River. It’d take a day longer and finding passage would be harder but everyone traded with the Kerch. All he had to do was find a ship flying the flying fish, mention he was indentured to a councilwoman’s wife, and show a bit of _kruge_. They’d grant him passage for the _kruge_ alone.

In the meantime, the Ravkans might try to contact Alys but her mail would go through Wylan first and who read Wylan's mail? He'd just have to make sure it was him and not-

Kuwei stopped. He didn't have to do any of that. It was real. It was actually real. The contract, the signing, all of it. Even if it was never honored, the contract would hold up before a council. Its stipulation that Kuwei visit her home twice a week made recalling him to Ravka impossible.

It was done.

Kuwei closed his eyes and finally, he breathed.

Then he tightened his hold on his things and got out of the country as fast as possible.

 

* * *

 

The trip back was uneasy.

Kuwei’s skin itched, warning him of danger at every passing breeze and lapping wave. He spoke to no one but the crew and them barely, avoided touching anything that even hinted of a Fabrikator's touch, ate nothing that he hadn't packed. His bag never left his sight. It was his pillow at night, a weight around his shoulder during the day.

And yet, the danger never came. A false contract and an Alkemi’s silence had given him a head start. The contract was solid, only the intent a lie and who in Ravka would question a Van Eck? It would ring true and, better still, powerful. Disgraced as Alys' husband- as Wylan's father- was, the name was known outside of Kerch.

He would be alright. Once he reached Kerch, once the contract got into the Little Palace's hands, he was untouchable. Only the signatories could break a Kerch contract.

He would be safe.

He'd slip back into the house and everything would be alright.

Kerch, stinking, putrid, corrupt, wonderful Kerch would be his savior.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t know how they knew but they did. They were there when the ship pulled in, waiting for him on the docks.

“Inej,” Jesper said, revolvers at his hips, and Kuwei couldn’t even acknowledge him because Wylan.

Three weeks had passed and Wylan.

Got.

“Big,” Kuwei breathed. He wanted to be more eloquent, say things like  _you're beautiful_  and  _you're stunning_  and  _I need to be inside you_  but  _big_  was what came out.

Wylan ruffled his hair and laughed. His belly jiggled against Kuwei's side. “Oh, no, whatever will I do? Do you think my boyfriends will mind?”

“Boyfriends?” Kuwei repeated, eyes unable to leave the vast perfection in front of him.

“Saints,” Jesper said, rolling his eyes to the heavens. “Your beauty has rendered him stupid.”

Kuwei ignored him. He threw himself at Wylan and wrapped his arms around him. He squeezed his eyes shut. He’d done it. He’d sent in his report. He’d handed Hoyt the contract. He was safe.

“Oof. Watch out,” Wylan said, forcing Kuwei’s thoughts back to the present and the reason he had done all of this. The mercher held a hand protectively in front of his belly. “I’m a bit full.”

Kuwei’s brows raised. He pulled back, then pressed a hand to the top of Wylan’s stomach. Yes, he was definitely full.

Wylan smiled, making his full cheeks dimple. His eyes danced. “Don’t worry. Jesper’s been taking good care of me while you were gone.”

Kuwei made a rude gesture. Jesper tackled him, grabbing Kuwei around the shoulders and pulling him in close.

“Are you not going to say hi to me?” he demanded.

“Hi, Jesper,” Kuwei said. His eyes remained glued on Wylan.

“He put on twelve pounds while you were gone.” Kuwei’s eyes widened. He bit his lip. Jesper chuckled. “Even when he missed you dearly, I made him eat. Now you,” Jesper pinched Kuwei’s nonexistent hip, “have you been taking care of yourself? Because I know a hole that could desperately use filling.”

Kuwei’s mind blanked. He closed his eyes hard. “There are  _people_  here.”

“Yeah? And what are they going to say? Wylan Van Eck’s Barrel boy saying filthy things on the docks isn’t news.” Jesper squeezed Kuwei’s hip. “If you’re not in the mood for that,” he murmured, “I have a cock that I could get up for you.”

Kuwei elbowed him in the solar plexus.

Laughing, Jesper helped them into the carriage. He held his hand out to Wylan, who was stomach-heavy and liable to tip over if he leaned back too far. Kuwei didn’t need any help. Still, he wasn’t about to pass up a free opportunity to  _politely_  touch Jesper in public.

He patted the top of Jesper’s head just to be smart and yelped when Jesper pinched his ass.

“There was a fly,” Jesper said, batting the least innocent eyes in the world.

“Hurry up,” Wylan said, a smile spreading wide over his lips. “I don’t want to spend all day at the docks.”

“It is a pity they don’t let you have sex on the docks,” Jesper agreed.

Kuwei choked. Wylan took the liberty of elbowing Jesper for him.

 

* * *

 

Wylan rubbed his poor, bloated tummy. He had a mind to rub his jaw, too. It ached.

He wasn't all that big, not really. His tummy was big. It was his most prominent feature certainly, creeping steadily forward over his thighs, needing to be hoisted up if he wanted a hope of unbuttoning his trousers, but Jesper was only teasing when he said he looked pregnant empty-bellied. Maybe six or seven months, chubby, well fed with a wide navel no pregnant woman would have and a definite jiggle, but nowhere near _big_.

His weight was spreading out, a thick layer of pudge everywhere, making him chunky, doughy, but not _big_.

He still saw his father's face in the mirror.

 

* * *

 

Wylan was starting to get wide. Paradoxically, this was making him think his belly looked smaller, which he pointed out in his earnest, slightly glum manner one night after Jesper finished feeding him enough chocolates to kill a lesser man. Kuwei, rather than acknowledging this pronouncement, poked Wylan in the stomach and watched it wobble back into place.

“You don't look smaller to me,” Jesper said, though, of course, this accomplished nothing. He drummed a beat on Wylan’s leg. “You're not losing weight, that’s for sure.”

Wylan sighed. His double chin threatened to swallow its brother.

Jesper would love to know where he was getting this from. Yesterday, Kuwei had spent an hour rubbing lotion into the newest batch of angry red marks splitting the delicate skin of his stomach. The two little rolls tucked underneath his plump pecs were threatening to meet in the middle. His ass was dimpling and his arms were getting as big around as some men’s thighs. They’d just replaced his wardrobe, for Saints’ sake!

Proving he wasn't completely absorbed in prodding Wylan’s fat, Kuwei added, "You're getting proportional."

Jesper shot him a look because really?

Kuwei looked nonplussed. He sent a tendril of flame up Wylan's bare belly. Wylan said it felt like a cross between a tickle and hot wax. Jesper wouldn't know. Kuwei didn't do it to him. This was not something he was upset about. As much he tried to pretend otherwise, the boy absolutely fell apart under Jesper’s slightest touch. That he was outwardly more affectionate to Wylan was inconsequential.

Jesper was violently in love with both of them. It was a feeling other people might have difficulty parsing but Jesper had never had anything less than an abundance of emotion. It had always been perfectly possible for him to be infatuated with two or three or half a dozen people without ever once considering that affection for one might take away from affection for another. He just loved. It was the depth that had changed, not the ability.

"I feel so full all the time." Wylan cradled his stomach between his hands.

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

The merchling groaned, dropping his stomach and pushing his palm into the side of it. He grimaced. "No. It just hurts." He shook his head at Jesper's artful display of concern. "Not like that, just...pressure. A lot of it. And my clothes keep digging into my skin. I’m getting lines everywhere."

"Those are called stretchmarks,” Kuwei said.

"You hush," Wylan retorted. "And stop poking me. You’re half the reason I’m so stuffed."

Kuwei stuck out his tongue. Wylan caught it in a hard, filthy kiss, all open mouths and tongues, and a moan that could have been from either of them. Then it broke, the two separating as Wylan winced and leaned back, fingertips pressing gingerly into his belly.

Unconcerned, Kuwei nipped at the undercurve. Wylan hummed and tangled fingers in his hair. Kuwei, his face half-hidden by Wylan’s bulk, gazed at Jesper from under lowered lids.

Taking the invitation for what it was, Jesper scooted closer. He scratched his nails into the back of Kuwei's neck where he liked it, right where the hairs were shortest. A shiver, then golden eyes slid happily closed.

Wylan watched them with a pleased, slightly avaricious expression. There was only so much he could do while he digested. He might as well watch.

"There has to be a more efficient way," he said while Jesper was still wiping come off his and Kuwei’s torsos. It might as well be a proclamation, it was said so resolutely.

"Efficient?" Jesper asked, incredulous. Wylan wasn't exactly having trouble maintaining his weight. Wylan was getting pretty damn fat, all things considered.

His shirt, which Kuwei could and did wear as a loose, mid-thigh length nightshift, wasn't even fully covering him right now. It was bunched up under his chest, putting his fat belly on display. Nearest Jesper, a pudgy hip striped with red and silver lines spilled onto the sheets.

Jesper wanted to bite it.

Kuwei sucked in a breath. Jesper withdrew his hand- he’d placed it on the boy’s arm, forgetting how easily he got overstimulated- and Kuwei acquiesced by turning his face into the underside of Wylan's belly. If Wylan sat up, it might swallow Kuwei's entire head. Kuwei probably wouldn't be adverse to that. It might even be his goal, the weirdo.

"Yes,” Wylan said, nodding. “Something that requires less eating."

"You like eating," Jesper pointed out.

"It's inefficient, Jes!" Jesper glanced at the mound of Wylan's belly. It looked efficient to him. "I have things to do other than eat all day!"

Looking Jesper dead in the eye with the gravest expression possible, Kuwei said, "Yes. He has to meet with the tailor."

Jesper snickered.

Kuwei's skull made a thwapping noise as Wylan's fingers met it.

"Oww," he whined. "Mean."

"I'm willing to entertain _useful_ suggestions."

"Fine,” Kuwei grumbled, rubbing his head. “Beer.”

"I can kiss it better," Jesper offered and was ignored.

Wylan huffed. "I already drink beer."

Jesper’s lips made an obscenely loud smacking noise when they left Kuwei's head.

"You drink lager," he said. “Kuwei probably isn't counting that. It’s basically hops-infused water. But what about something darker? You get most of your calories from eating. What if you started drinking them, too?”

“Exactly,” Kuwei added, still rubbing his head pitifully.

He put a hand on Wylan's gut and used it as leverage to sit up. Wylan grunted as the hand sank in deep. Efficient, Jesper’s left shoe.

Kuwei studied him, golden eyes calculating. He and Wylan had a rhythm Jesper was still getting a handle on. It shifted constantly, going from playful to borderline mean to cliquish. More than once, he'd found them huddled together, hands cupped around their mouths, looking at him and giggling when he looked back.

 “We could try _dark_ beer,” he said.

“Dark beer?” Wylan questioned. His eyes glinted.

“You know. Beer belly. Beer. It couldn’t hurt.”

Wylan pursed his lips, considering.

He nodded.

 

* * *

 

The beer worked wonders.

It took a bit for Wylan to adjust his capacity but, once he did, the pounds couldn’t come on fast enough. His tummy wasn’t simply decorated with stretchmarks: now it was carved with them, deep, raw gashes like sun bursts around his belly button, stripes at his sides, little, fluting wiggles on the insides of his arms. It made him laugh how he had once seen the red indents of his waistband and the miniscule circles of his buttons as progress.  _This_  was progress.

Had Jan Van Eck ever even _had_ a stretchmark? Wylan doubted it. His father would never have eaten himself aching, never have considered taking more than a single glass of brandy a day. He would be disgusted with Wylan if he knew.

That thought was more thrilling than it should be.

There were benefits to the dark beer beyond the weight. All the extra carbonation was causing Wylan to hiccup little burps that Jesper couldn’t get enough of. He hadn't figured out how to enjoy without putting his palms to his burning cheeks. Some of the big ones even had him burying his face in his crossed arms. Kuwei was getting good at teasing those out of Wylan (the answer, as always, was more beer and an increasingly less inhibited merch).

In fact, he looked swollen with child, a fact Jesper, Kuwei, and everyone else in Ketterdam enjoyed pointing out. He wasn’t, of course, as a single finger pressed deep into soft fat could attest, but even Wylan had to admit he looked the part.

They’d gotten into an argument about it yesterday, in a restaurant of all places. Kuwei had been venturing out more lately, something about wanting to see the city. Since that was a thing they could do together and most of Wylan’s work was pretty hand’s off, he had taken them both out to lunch.

This had devolved _somehow_ (somehow was a word Wylan was finding he often used when Jesper and Kuwei were involved) into seeing whether Wylan could take down more than three flagons of pale ale, his personal best, over a full meal. When he had, his tummy jutting proudly from between the flaps of his frock coat, his much-abused buttons crying out, and his stomach gurgling unhappily, all a combination Wylan was intimately familiar with, Jesper decided to have his fun.

This fun involved fondling Wylan in public. Kneeling in front of him, cradling his fat (he was getting  _so_  fat, it was  _amazing_ ) tummy between his wonderfully deft fingers, his head bowed over it, full lips brushing against Wylan’s buttons, Jesper glanced up and asked Wylan, “Now before I put myself out there and offer you my hand to defend your honor, just for clarification: is it mine or his?”

Wylan swatted him. Jesper, as delighted by the spots of color on Wylan’s cheeks as he was at ruining the moment, danced away and laughed.

Kuwei dropped the kiss Jesper had denied on Wylan's belly. “Mine,” he said. “All mine.”

Patting him gently on his head, Wylan whispered, “Of course, it is.”

“Hold your horses, brat. If anyone-“

Wylan threw a napkin at Jesper and scraped his chair back. He stood with some effort. He may have been a little drunk. He was certainly unsteady on his feet. “Jesper Fahey, this child is mine and it’ll be a bastard if I want it to be!”

They were very firmly asked to leave after that.

Everything had been fine, of course. They just weren’t allowed back to that particular establishment. Jesper had called it sad while Kuwei had gone to buy street food, which he claimed was the best food Ketterdam had to offer anyhow.

Wylan had gone from tipsy to full on drunk by the time they had gotten back to the house. According to Jesper, he’d said all manner of things on the way there, then collapsed facedown in the bed, pulled them to either side of them, and said he felt like a planet with two satellites orbiting around it.

Wylan didn’t remember any of that. He did, however, like the sentiment.


	15. Chapter 15

This time, when Jesper asked what Kuwei would be doing for work, Kuwei had his answer ready.

It did not involve Kaz Brekker. Let Jesper and Wylan deal with that bitch’s son. Kuwei had been thinking. He had the contract. The Kerch were famously adherent to their contracts. They wouldn’t let an indentured Grisha servant slip through their fingers, not even if he had prior commitments. But, a) as nice as it was spending most of his day with Wylan, he’d like a little space; b) he was running out of money; and c) he’d like to actually do something other than read and wander aimlessly all day.

So when Jesper asked, Kuwei’s reply was “Working in a lighthouse.”

When he was a kid, it was a hopeless dream. Inferni who weren't experiments or soldiers in cold, uncivilized Ravka didn’t exist, not openly. A few could stay in hiding for awhile, if they could find work in a forge or a kitchen, where they’d live a precarious existence, knowing a single mistake could end it all. Other Grisha were better at hiding. There were few places Inferni could use their powers and not be found out and they had to use them or they’d fall ill and then it would be all over.

But this was Ketterdam. Kuwei didn’t even have to be good. All the questions of whether he could hold it and for how long, how much fuel he could save were just hypotheticals. He just have to convince one lighthouse or lightvessel he could and there were so _many_.

And he had always wanted to.

There was a peninsula fifty miles south of Bhez Ju. A half day’s trip to the Kerch land bridge or less. The Kaotong Peninsula was dotted with lighthouses, short, squat towers made of brick to warn sailors of hazardous geography. Bhez Ju’s waters were deeper, the soil sandier and less able to hold heavy buildings. There they used steel warships and lit flames on the masts. Those flames cast shadows down over hulls painted with threatening characters and brimming with cannons. Kuwei had heard once that there were Inferni who worked there. Now that he was older, of course, he knew that worked wasn't the right word.

But he didn't have to worry about any of that here.

The Kerch weren’t a warfaring people. They paid others to do that for them. Their lightvessels lit up the Land Bridge. Their lighthouses directed sailors from the outlying islands. In the dark of night, Kuwei could see, if he really craned his neck, flames from both the tower at the tip of the Reaper’s Barge and a lightship moored out in the harbor.

“I could make it work,” he said, remembering Djerholm and its lighthouse. Vakere Djerholm. He'd never gotten to see it. It was rumored the Fjerdans had found a way to trap energy from the sun and store it for use at night but even Kuwei knew that was foolish. Sun Summoners were impossibly rare. There hadn’t been any hiding in the Ice Court laboratory.

“It wouldn’t be too hard to convince one of the lightships to let you try it out,” Wylan said, his palm resting on his belly as was becoming his habit. “You want to make the light, right?”

“Yes.”

“How long can you hold a flame?” Jesper asked.

“A couple hours.”

“It'd be something to do,” Wylan hedged. Jesper looked underwhelmed.

“It's really hard,” Kuwei said, feeling like they needed to know just how not boring this was. “Holding a flame like that...fire is living. It's fragile, like a baby bird. Summoning it is easy but keeping it there, it's not like being a Tidemaker. Fire doesn't like to stay. You can't make it stop.”

“It has to keep changing,” Wylan guessed. “Growing.”

Kuwei's eyes flicked to Wylan's round gut. “Yes.”

“If you were employed here, it would be another reason not to go back to Ravka, wouldn’t it?”

Wylan had gotten it in one.

Nina wasn’t wrong when she said Kuwei couldn’t run forever. The contract would hold the Ravkans off for awhile yet. But eventually they would come calling. So long as he lived, they would keep trying. He’d given everything he could to the Ravkans: what was left of his father’s notes, all of his memories, every scrap of theory he could remember. Everything but the bit of jurda parem he had left in Kaz Brekker’s care.

He was a middling Inferni and a subpar scientist. He’d hid it for a while but only because people kept expecting him to undo his father’s legacy and prove himself this great hero but Kuwei Yul-Bo was, when it came down to it, a Fabrikator scientist’s son, not one himself. He was too valuable to be sent to the front lines, too average to be put to work. His only asset now was in the possibility that one day, someone might be able to squeeze more out of him and, if they did, the Ravkans didn’t want it to be their hundreds of enemies.

Sometimes, Kuwei thought the only thing he was good at was making Wylan happy and Jesper horny. He didn’t want to be recalled to Os Alta just so he could spend another few years reexamining how much of a disappointment he was.

“I say we let him,” Jesper said to Wylan with a shrug. “If it’s really what he wants to do.”

Wylan frowned. “He doesn't need our permission. We're not his parents.”

Kuwei kind of wanted their permission.

“Oh, I could get used to being called Daddy.” Jesper grinned and reached out to caress Kuwei's cheek. “Would you like that, baby?”

Kuwei's ears burned.


	16. Chapter 16

Kuwei stopped by Little Ravka on his way home. Only one street stall was still open and he overpaid the ragged-looking woman inside it out of a sort of pity he didn’t want to examine. So deftly he didn’t see her do it, she rolled two bags up for him in ornate paper and handed them to him without a word. He left half in the kitchen for Cook and brought the rest up to the bedroom.

He'd missed dinner like he did every night he worked at the lighthouse. It was why he'd brought so many  _zefir_.

"Wei?"

Kuwei slithered in between them, earning him a grumble from Jesper as Wylan's warm chest was replaced by Kuwei's cold back.

"I brought you something," Kuwei said, crinkling the fancy paper on his present.

That woke Wylan the rest of the way up. Jesper snorted. He began massaging Kuwei’s side.

"You're chilly," he murmured, scooting up to share body warmth.

"It's cold outside."

"Mmm," Jesper said, continuing his kneading. His fingers found the pocket of fat above Kuwei's hip, the one Kuwei was far blushier about than he cared to admit. Kuwei squirmed. Too many snacks with Wylan had left him a little chunky up front as well and Jesper's fingers were quick to find that, too.

"What news?" Jesper asked as he fondled Kuwei's starter belly. Wylan was concentrating on ripping the bag open in a few quick, polite tears.

Kuwei fought the urge to breathe shallowly. How did Wylan let go so easily? Kuwei had to work himself up to relaxing enough to let his belly fill Jesper's hand. He still wasn't used to the feeling of having so much there. Jesper was rougher than Wylan, who just liked to smooth his hand over Kuwei's stomach and tease him about how small it was compared to his. In his drowsier moments, when it was just the two of them in bed together and a mountain of sweet wrappers, Kuwei liked to imagine what it would be like if that were no longer true.

“What news?” Jesper asked.

Kuwei glanced at Wylan and then Jesper. “I got a promotion.”

“Did you now?”

“Captain.“ Kuwei waited in breathless excitement.

“Of a ship that goes nowhere,” Jesper said. “Congratulations.”

Kuwei elbowed him. Jesper, in an impressive feat of sideways acrobatics, dodged it.

“And what does this promotion of yours entail?”

“Entail,” Kuwei repeated.

“I will have you know-” Jesper snagged one of Wylan's _zefir_ , narrowly missing getting smacked for it. “They're  _to share_ ,” Jesper reminded Wylan. “There's plenty left for you.”

Wylan's face made it abundantly clear he did not want to share. Kuwei made a mental note to pick up more.

Jesper patted Wylan’s curls. “As I was saying, I am a highly educated man.” He broke off a piece of the stolen  _zefir_  and offered it to Wylan, who wrinkled his nose.

“More like you learned that word yesterday and have been waiting to use it,” Kuwei muttered.

“Wrong. I learned it this morning.”

“I’ll be in charge of the whole lightvessel,” Kuwei told Wylan. If he started in on Jesper, king of tangents, the conversation would never get finished. “I’ll still be able to tend the fire; it’ll just be a lot more administrative work.”

Wylan made a sound Kuwei knew from long practice meant  _do go on_. He never actually used do that way. Kuwei just liked to add a bit of imperious flare to Wylan’s wordless commands.

He explained his expanded duties, all the men who would be under him, how the former captain had chosen him personally because, Shu or not, he’d never even thought of an Inferni on a lightvessel and now he could hardly imagine a ship without one.

He paused for breath and looked excitedly at both of them.

“That’s wonderful,” Jesper said. He broke off another piece of marshmallow treat and held it out to Wylan, questioning. Wylan accepted this one.

Kuwei took that opportunity to snuggle a little closer.

“I think it'd be nice,” Wylan said, stifling a belch behind his hand. He dug into the bag of  _zefir_  and pulled out two, popping one in his mouth and dropping the other on Kuwei’s tongue.

“It certainly would be something to do.”

“Don’t you get it? This means I can  _stay_.”

“You’re already staying,” Jesper pointed out.

“Yes, but now they can’t recall me.”

“Who?”

“The Ravkans.”

“Oh, right. Them.”

Kuwei huffed.

Wylan touched his arm. “We’re very excited for you, Wei. It’s just a little hard for us to understand what exactly it is you  _do_  on the ship.”

“I’ll be able to work days now,” Kuwei replied. He didn’t really feel like talking about this anymore. Nina would be plenty excited for him.

"Don't you like them?" he asked Wylan, feigning hurt. Wylan stopped rubbing circles into the top of his belly and gave Kuwei a surprised look. He’d had already eaten half the bag. It hadn’t been small.

"They're delicious," Wylan assured him, pressing a sweet to Kuwei's lips. "I just figured  _your_  tummy could do with a little filling." He rubbed it gently with his warm hand. Kuwei leaned into the touch. It was easier than with Jesper. Compared to Wylan, Kuwei was still small.

“I-“

"Eat," Wylan chided. "Then talk."

Before Kuwei had realized it, Wylan had fed him the rest of the _zefir_ along with a decent portion of  _suikerbrood_  he'd produced from the bedside table. His hand kneaded Kuwei's stomach, which refused to give more than a half centimeter. Sneaky bastard.

"I got those for you," Kuwei huffed, which was really the only sound he could make when this full. He couldn’t even sit up if he tried, fat fucking pig he was becoming.

Wylan pinched the fat on his belly. A shiver coursed through Kuwei's frame. As full as he was, there was a decent chunk of flesh between Wylan’s fingers.

"I know,” Wylan said. “And they were delicious." He kissed Kuwei. "I thought I'd share."

He pressed down firmly on the place where Kuwei's stomach jutted out from under his ribcage. A belch ripped through him. Kuwei’s cheeks flamed red. He turned to hide it in Wylan’s chest.

Wylan rubbed his stomach with the pad of his thumb. He kissed his cheek. "Good boy."

On reflection, it wasn't such a mystery how the extra pounds around Kuwei's waist had accumulated. Kuwei took in as deep a breath as he could. His stomach barely expanded. Damnit, Wylan.

"I feel chubby," he complained, letting the breath go. He grimaced as he felt his fat jiggle and settle.

Jesper reached over Kuwei’s side to give his belly a less than gentle squeeze. "Hate to break it to you, Wei Wei, but that's because you are. This?" He pinched a roll- what was with all the pinching today?- and rubbed it between his fingers. “Pure pudge."

Kuwei squirmed out of his grasp. At least, he tried to. There wasn't a lot of room on the bed. He pouted. "This is why Wylan's my favorite."

"You love me."

"Don't love. Hate."

Jesper responded by scraping together a big handful of all the fat on Kuwei's belly. Sharp pain and searing pleasure left Kuwei breathless. "Uh huh. Whatever you say, tubby." He kissed the thickest part of Kuwei's belly before letting it go, then smacked Kuwei's thigh, which wobbled alarmingly. Kuwei had been giving into entirely too much excess lately.

Jesper looked at Wylan. "He's not all that chubby, though, is he? There's not much to grab."

Kuwei wanted to protest that they'd never had a problem with "not having much to grab" and that Jesper had as much to grab as a stalk but Jesper was already reaching across Kuwei to grip a handful of Wylan's mottled gut. It bulged between Jesper's slim fingers and spilled out the side of his hand, not even close to being contained. At the same time, Wylan's big belly was spreading across Kuwei's hip, heavy and warm. His breasts were full, nipples soft, his belly button one long slash.

"Now  _that's_  something to grab," Jesper said.

Wylan smiled indulgently. To Kuwei, he said, "Nothing a job spent sitting on your ass won't fix."

"It's certainly done wonders for you," Jesper quipped, eyeing the broad expanse of Wylan's frame. "Goodness, Kuwei, you've made Wylan crass."

Kuwei's face was burning too much to answer.


	17. Chapter 17

Lying in bed, his breakfast still digesting, Wylan scraped his nails down the side of his belly and closed his eyes in pleasure. A sharp, tingly feeling followed his nail tracks.

He patted his tummy, a thrill passing through him at the sharp  _thwap!_  from a properly distended belly. Winter was almost at an end. He had spent the season in high spirits, passing from just ripe into nearly bursting with juices or, in his case, lager and beer.

Wylan pinched a hefty hunk of flesh near his belly button between his thumb and forefinger and let it go. He prodded himself, faintly pleased with how far his finger could go before meeting resistance. After a few minutes spent in this manner, he rolled off the bed, bringing a hand up to hold his tummy still. He frowned. He hadn't had nearly enough if he could still manage such gymnastics.

He walked over to the mirror. There was no denying his resemblance to an overripe peach. His thighs were finally starting to get some meat to them and his love handles were nothing if not generous but his stomach was the real showpiece. Wide and dusted with only the slightest touch of ruddy hair, it stood before him like the prow of a ship, full and wide and gravity-defying. Turning this way and that, Wylan admired the deep navel and the shiny tracks of old stretch marks. He spread his hands underneath his belly, picked his stomach up, and dropped it. It  _thunked_  back down, too thick to properly wobble anywhere but at the sides. Wylan hiccupped, tasting part of his breakfast.

Jesper, who had been watching all of this with his peculiar brand of appreciation, leaned against the doorframe. His arms were crossed over his chest, lean, dark lines a sharp contrast to Wylan's pale, weighty curves.

"What's the verdict?" he asked.

Kuwei appeared then, the sweet boy interested in the question as well. His hair was still wet from an after-breakfast bath. With Wylan’s old clothes clinging to his rapidly softening body, his worshipful golden eyes drank in Wylan's every move.

Wylan ran his hands over his sides, down his generous hips. He cupped his hands under his belly, holding it. It was heavy but still incredibly soft. There was a faint bruise on one side where Jesper liked to grab him and teeth marks on the undercurve where Kuwei had gotten a bit handsy. Letting it go, Wylan spread his fingers wide over his full tummy. He imagined what it would look like empty, how nice it would be if it were always this big. Maybe then it would start to really droop.

Ghezen, he wanted it to.

He poked his tummy. There was a little give.

"More," he declared.

Jesper smirked. "Go tell the servants," he said to Kuwei, whose eyes, wide with religious rapture, were pinned on Wylan's reflection, "Mister Wylan hasn’t had his fill yet."

Wylan smiled.

No, he most certainly hadn’t.


End file.
